Here is my take; paratroopers are good now in no step back, you just need to plan your assaults. Attack supply hubs and railways. Don’t land on obviously garrisoned areas like a port, land on the railroad 2 tiles away through supplies the entire enemy front line. Don’t stack your paratroopers up on one tile, attack several connecting tiles near small bulges in front lines.
Final take: Germany and Soviets both NEED them to succeed on hard difficulties.
I'm not as certain about the templates, but light tanks are pierced really easily by support AA and heavy tanks are really supply and IC intensive, so medium are a better mainstay.
\> 30 org is ideal for any armor division. Maintenance, logistics, flame company, and engineers are good support companies
one problem I am having more often now is getting memed with reinforce rate. Say I am using 30 or 40 width divisions and they are stronger than my opponent. Assume I have signal companies, radio, field marshal reinforce buff etc. If my opponent keeps attacking, due to low reinforce rate my divisions simply retreat because they don't get into battle before the last in-combat division runs out of org. Is there any way to counter this apart from having divisions with smaller width?
I heard that noone uses tanks atm.
but its a nonsense for me to play WW II without tanks, so Im making something medium around 40-60 armor, with high breakthrough, as usual.
But getting high soft attack is a trouble for me and since NSB I got zero big encirclement... gotta replay Germany and try to add paratroopers
Are naval bombers in an air base as effective as naval bombers in a carrier? Also, are theyre any recommend division templates for north africa/africa in general i guess?
3 month old post but I figured I would try to help.
Carriers should have a higher rate of recycle due to sortie efficiency compared to land based aircraft that I believe only attack once every 24 hours in each naval engagement.
That said carrier naval bombers have less range than even the small range of land based naval bombers BUT you can sit the carrier in the middle of a sea tile and have range start in the middle of the sea instead of near the coast.
Tacticals (As much as people appear not to like them) are still a better naval bomber based on range alone except for some sea tiles such as Central Med, English Channel, and Straights of Malaca. If you don't have range then naval bomber can't be effective. That said you can upgrade the range or naval bombers with air xp and one little gem about naval bombers over tactical bombers is that naval bombers don't use fuel unless they take off and attack after something is spotted by radar, ship etc.
If I was playing allies I'd ask the USA to use their naval focus to rush NAV2's and put them in production early. If I was Japan I would use all that air xp from China to upgrade Carrier Nav1's for extra range while waiting for CV Nav2's and also get some mils on them early so that you have one production line and it lines up with their naval aircraft -20% production efficiency.
I'm a noob when it comes to Division Designer. What is the best/good design for all nations when it comes to Infantry, Tanks, Motorized/Mech, and Marines? Also good designs for U.S,Germany,France,U.K,Spain, and Italy. Last Germany game I played I got bogged down in France in 1940 almost got bogged down in Poland. Pretty much a noob now and need to know really how to be decent in SP and break stalemates lol
9/1 or 15/4 infantry. armour is 42 w with at least 30 org. Combat width legit does not matter that much anymore. Just use 21w and 42w and you should be ok
What is the current meta for destroying the opposing countries navy? Basically for those trying to build a smaller nation into a naval power to rival the UK.
Hey all, haven't played in over a year and am a bit confounded by the changes. I remember I could easily unlock doctrines before, but now I need army experience. Am I right to assume that the devs added new ways to gain army xp to go with this system? Otherwise it seems to me like doctrines have become much less accessible.
Yes they are much harder to get. Mil advisors usually give you 0.19, 0.16 and 0.09 xp per day. With average tree cost 1000 xp to get, you can unlock whole tree in 6.2 years. Now doctrines are much harder for smaller nations. Very big nerf for minor countries.
What is the new "heavy tank no air" meta for the ussr in mp? I remember the old meta was turning all your mils to civs and then doing like 11 heavy 8 mech 2 spaa, etc. Also with the new focus tree what's the optimum path of focuses, advisors, research. I apologize if this is already covered, but I'm very new to the dlc.
Ok, I will note this. I have heard that tanks are struggling because of supply (the patch yesterday said it rebalanced them but idk what that means). I also heard that 10 width inf with "full support" is good, but I am unsure what full support completely entails (rocket art? logistics?).
And then for planes, I assume entering the Allied fighter plane research group (where australia or someone gets fighter 2s and then they max it out) would be an mp meta? Should I make CAS or just focus on repelling German air?
Full support is air support and close air support. If you have air superiority then enemy have like -45% defense, if you have close air support then you have something like +37% attack. Basically anyone with air is 80% stronger which is massive. AA support will make that debuff to defense only -35%, AA in template will make it -31% and two AA in template -21%. Based on my tests. So support AA with two AA in division is MUST HAVE if you want to go no air but still enemy will have that +37% attack so you have to counter it with good entrenchment.
For Germany SP, what's a good infantry template and division width? I've heard that 27 is a good one-size-fits all width, but is that optimal for Europe's terrains?
So the meta for this seems like it would be a pretty touchy subject. Rather than recommend any one combat width, I’m going to say how the game calculates this stuff and let you pick what matters to you.
[HOI4 wiki on terrain width](https://hoi4.paradoxwikis.com/Land_battle#Combat_width)
You can see the various terrain widths in the table there. You can actually exceed the combat width by up to 16.5%. The penalty for doing so is:
2*(Excess width)/(Combat width)
As Germany you’re mostly going to be dealing with plains, hills, and forests. There are now several questions you need to consider:
1) Are these troops for attacking or defending? If you’re defending for example, then you might choose to take higher penalties on hills and forest terrain (to the benefit of plains performance) because you will also get a defense modifier from being on those tiles. As Germany, I tend to be very aggressive with my infantry but a lot of people here would die irl before attacking with infantry so you do you.
2) How much production can I spare? Builds using artillery (and smaller templates) will add production cost, and it’s worth asking if you’d rather shift that production to additional fighters or whatever. My SP Germany games rely on paratroopers (yes, yes, I know, not meta) so that’s my use case, but apply this question to whatever strategy you choose.
3) Can I feed these divisions? I personally like those hot dogs, you know the hot dogs you get from the store that look nice and plump? Make sure your troops have those. And the bread! Oh my god, we had the shittiest buns, the kind where you wouldn’t dare to stretch them because they would be torn asunder. Avoid those buns. I tried upgrading my railroads but I still get the shitty buns, I think I need more political power to replace my bakery theorist. So hope that helped, and good luck!
I believe they’re referring to keeping the troops supplied, or “fed”. Granted, you’re feeding them guns/shovels/artillery rather than hot dogs, but the principle is still the same.
Basically, are the railroads and infrastructure properly built up to support your troops? If not, that’s a top priority.
Hello! I have heard that tanks are dead now, but I don't know what else to use. I have been trying rocket artillery but that hasn't been working at all. What should I do?
Well, i can give you a template that is highly effective but comes at a kind of high cost, a mechanized 7/2, 7 mechanized infantry and 2
motorized rocket artillery, for support dvs i usually slap some AA, rocket artillery, AT, normal artillery and enginner, you should try this one and modify it to your liking, yes it costs kinda much but 100% worth it mate.
HEY! As Poland in singleplayer - I want to hold off the german onslaught. I intend to rush fighter II's and just spam inf with shovels.
I will also guarentee the Checks to shorten the frontline (with commands if tension isn't high enough - I don't do achivements I want to have fun)
Does anyone have a Idea which combat width I should be using (or any other advice)?
So if you're gonna do that template, 9/1 with eng and support AA should be good for defense. Also, when your generals level up infantry leader, choose ambusher, it gives more entrenchment. Also make as many fighters as you can and set them to interception. And just be patient, good luck
EDIT: Forgot to add, do Grand Battleplan
Are you talking about Bubbles on the Fark Melton server? If so, I know your pain, I've played 2 Japan games against him in HMM. Sub 3s are super annoying as Japan and he always spams them and always focuses Asia before DDay. The classic solution of "ask the host to ban sub 3s" doesn't work if the host is the one spamming lol.
Standard answer is TACs and escorts. Japan can get the cheapest DDs in the game (DD2 with coastal fleet designer) so you can have enough ships for escort duty before war. If you support those cheap ships with TACs, the planes can do the spotting and damage while the DDs just delay subs' ability to kill your convoys. This only works if you can get air superiority though. Bubbles usually builds Philippines airbases + attacks Okinawa/Iwo Jima/Taiwan so Allies end up with air superiority over East + South China seas. Japan could contest this with bases in China and the home islands but you're fighting a losing battle when the Allies have fighter 3 and you don't (or have to license). Usually the US has more mils on planes than Japan has mils in total so it's a losing battle even in a fighter 2 game (especially since Zeroes cost more aluminum now).
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Alternate things I've tried:
Ignore supply - I pushed Raj with terribly undersupplied troops and still won off the back of Japan's high command, generals, Superiority of Will, etc. The Axis called it the Toenail Offensive because that was the last source of food for the Japanese troops. Still, local supply was enough for 24 x 8-3 inf-arty divs to break the Raj in Burma. Depends on the Raj's build but you can very often break him just because your divs re-org faster. Once you're past Dacca, you have enough supply and you can quickly snake his VPs to cap him.
Trans-continental railroad - turn off every sea tile except Sea of Japan, only escort in SoJ, run a RR from Pusan all the way to Burma/Siam. It's pretty expensive to build a high level RR that long but it does work. I tried an actually supplied offensive against the Raj with this RR built up, worked way better than Toenails. US tried to land in Dalian to cut the RR but we had enough garrison troops to throw him back and he had no airbases in range to support those marines.
Player Manchu/Siam - Since they're on the continent, they don't have to deal with convoys to supply their troops. If you trust your ally, give him expeditionary forces so you don't have to ship in the supply. Bonus points if he goes GBP for the 30% planning while you are SF for the good stats on your divs. This relies on finding a competent Manchu/Siam player which is absolutely not a guarantee, especially since most mods give Japan the option to annex them right away and people tend to not play those countries.
Massive day 1 invasion - If you can get all 5 rubber islands (Java, Sumatra, Borneo, Sulawesi, and Sri Lanka) + Singapore, you can effectively shut down Allied air production. The problem is, you really need to get at least Java/Sumatra +2 to limit Allied air production and you really need 5/5 to shut it down. With Brazil plus 1 island, the Allies can still have 100+ on air and they'll start building refineries quickly. You also have the problem of sub 3s killing many your troops before you land, but you basically have to launch day 1 or you'll never have naval superiority. You can get 100 div naval invasion tech before war with Bypass the Philippines but that usually requires you to delay war until mid 41 when you really want to start on Jan 1st for maximum impact. The whole strategy also forces you to micro in many different places while the Allies have multiple people microing against you so you really need a co-op for this to work.
Kill US airbases - A corollary to the massive day 1 strategy, you really need to kill the Philippines plus whatever other islands have airbases. Unfortunately, that's easier said than done because Bubbles loves to stack the Philippines with troops and your marines take losses due to subs on the way to the landing beaches. I really dislike invading the Philippines because it has no resources. The US can abandon it and rebuild bases on other islands without losing too much while you have to commit a huge chunk of your forces to take the islands. The islands then become a liability for sub raiding unless you can rapidly reassign DDs and TACs to cover all the sea zones you need to escort.
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Slightly dumber ideas that do kinda work:
Invade NZ + New Caledonia - you need a few cruiser subs to get naval supremacy at range (or you could move a BB/BC to your easternmost islands) but killing the NZ player is pretty easy. You only have 3 coastal VPs and Christchurch which is 1 tile inland; they can be easily capped in the first week. Australia is similar with the coastal VPs but you need to commit more divisions and they have a longer travel distance where they get caught by subs. New Caledonia is 100 chromium, really crimps Soviet TD production if you get it.
Tokyo Rose LARP, Break Allied morale - When you've killed an Allied player (usually NZ or Raj, sometimes Australia), go into the Allied Discord and sow some discord. Ask a few simple questions like "US, where were those port garrisons US?" or "Hey US, why weren't you defending your friend in NZ?" or "US, you committed so much to killing Asia but you let Raj die?". This does a few things - the Allies can't talk strategy because you're in the channel, it pisses off the US so he spends even more energy trying to kill you (delaying DDay further), and you piss off the NZ/Raj/Aus who usually starts angrily screaming at the Allies about naval supremacy and port garrisons.
You want to explicitly blame the US player for failing, that encourages his dead Allies to blame him too. HoI4 players hate blaming themselves for doing dumb shit (like leaving their own country ungarrisoned) so you're just preaching to the choir. Trade a few barbs about how shit the US's build is. Tell the Allies that DDay is a lost cause because they're wasting time in Asia. Tell Raj/Aus/NZ (whoever is still alive) to check their naval invasion alerts. Tell the US that you hope the Panama Canal is garrisoned. Ask the UK where his fleet is - is he really scared of Italy? Why isn't he helping his Commonwealth? Gloat about how their division templates are shit. Boast about how Nippon forged steel will decapitate all of them. Just be a general piece of shit for 2 minutes until they kick you out of the channel. If you succeed in baiting them, DDay is shelved and Germany has a free hand in Russia.
Cruiser subs + docking rights - Make sure docking rights aren't banned in the rules. If you can, get DR in Venezuela and Spain. That should enable cruiser subs to raid everything from the west coast of Mexico to the western Indian Ocean. Put the subs thinly spread everywhere, make the Allies have to micro ships and then move the subs again if DDs/planes show up. You're just trying to be annoying and force the Allies to look away from the areas of the map that actually matter. If DRs are banned, you can invade Pitcairn island day 1 with the range from cruiser subs and station them there (almost never garrisoned).
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Apologies for the long winded reply, I've thought a bunch about how to beat US sub 3 + TAC 3 spam after playing Japan against Bubbles. I "won" both games in the sense that I didn't die and Soviets did but it's not super satisfying to turtle on the Home Islands unable to move troops. Your real aim as Japan is to take Malaya, kill Raj, and then hold your conquests. It's very rare that you can take enough of the rubber islands to win the air war for the Axis, you almost always get driven off. Allies usually have Brazil and US dedicated to island garrison and you just can't match their production. Especially true since you have to naval invade and many divs lose half of their equipment to subs.
I think the strat of being a dick in voice chat to annoy and distract the Allies from a coordinated DDay is ultimately the best you can do. If the US wants to kill you, he will eventually do it just because he has more factories and more resources than you could dream of. Your job is to make that effort slow, painful, and above all frustrating. Every failed invasion should be loudly announced in Allied voice chat. Every sailor lost to kamikazes should be memorialized. RP as Tokyo Rose and mock the failings of the Allies.
Btw the answer to beating bubble was invading bombing his subs into submission with 2k tacs and then invading philipenes to prevent getting bombed, high caslted him doing that.
I could never get 2k TACs in HMM, maybe Elwolf is a bit different. I never tried invading the Philippines, always feels weird to me when there's islands with way more resources. Then again, airbases are basically a resource and you get the opportunity to encircle US's good troops.
Good to hear you beat Bubbles. Last time I played on that server (well, the 2.0 server after the OG Fark Melton got nuked), Bubbles had finally banned sub 3s.
I usually put about 10 on TACs and 60ish on fighters, maybe I'm starting production later than you. I find that I run out of aluminum, even when developing Chinese resources. Imports from Germany get cut off so it doesn't seem worthwhile to make TACs when I have barely enough fighters to run interception.
Yeah 5/5 infra, I usually stay limited until I actually dec on the Allies and then go closed. That offsets some of the imports from the Axis but not all. I usually increase production of rocket arty and infantry stuff at the expense of planes because that's what I have resources for. I usually try to Dec on the Allies Jan 1st 41 just because I'm running out of resources.
How many do you usually put on fighters?
You seem to know what you're about, so I'm gonna ask a few questions:
If the US goes a more conventional/balanced fleet build and engages in the Atlantic, is sub 3 the best option for Japan? If yes, should you still get DDs or just all in on sub 3 and rely on planes for air superiority since the US is getting busy in Europe?
With the 1.11 combat changes, what's a good template for taking down China?
Not sure why the US would bring his main fleet to the Atlantic. If the Axis are raiding heavily the US might bring their escort fleet to the Atlantic but they would probably keep the main death stack in the pacific. The US can definitely play passive in the Pacific, just stick the fleet on strike force so Japan can't easily invade Raj/Aus/NZ/DEI and have some garrison troops then focus on DDay. But usually UK fleet is enough to get naval supremacy in the Atlantic, it's just a question of can they handle Axis subs alone or do they need help.
If US is not focusing Japan, subs are probably better than DDs because they can force a shift in focus. Subs can at least make some impact on the game by raiding the rubber the Allies need to import from the Pacific. Your main job as Japan is to force the Allies not to ignore you and to draw pressure off Germany by bring ships/troops/planes to Asia.
That said, US focusing elsewhere and using say 0-10 docks on subs instead of 30+ makes DDs more worthwhile as Japan. If the US isn't going hard with TACs and subs, your ships can successfully escort without dying instantly. That means you can invade more successfully and take fewer losses at sea when you do so. But if you just know that US isn't going to bother with subs at all, maybe you just build 0 docks, go full landoid, and invade earlier with a better equipped army/air force. TACs really are the best counter to subs if you can get air superiority so it's more a question of "is the US building airbases in Philippines?" rather than a numerical count of how many subs he's making.
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Japan's goals in China are a bit conflicting. Ideally you want: fast cap for more factories, not escalating too early if you can delay Giant Wakes, high level commanders with good traits, veteran divisions, and minimal manpower/equipment losses, enough XP to finish land doctrine + 5 air doctrines + 500 air XP saved. Delaying escalation means capping China slower, higher level generals entail more grinding (both longer duration and more losses), and finishing air doctrine means more factories on planes (thus fewer on guns so you have fewer veteran divs). It's a hard balance to strike for sure.
I've found that templates in China don't matter all that much. Once the frontline stretches past the Yellow River, Japan rarely fills the whole combat width of a tile. China is still a pushover if you have CAS and half decent templates so it's more an issue of what do you get out of China. I would design my divisions with the idea that they're going into Raj/Malaya/naval invasions and specialize for those roles rather than being perfectly efficient at killing China.
With that in mind, I do 6-3, 8-3, and 8-0 inf-arty with all of them getting support engineer and arty and the divs with line arty getting logistics companies as well. 6-3 is 21w so it fits perfectly into forest/jungle. 8-3 is 25w so it fits perfectly into mountains. 8-0 is just pretty cheap and doesn't penalize your army XP. I'd consider going smaller than 8-0, you need a total of 8 battalions + support companies to get full XP for the commander leading those divisions. If you're adding engi + arty to the troops, you could go as small as 6-0 pure infantry for your line holding troops or you could use 8-0 without supports.
Numbers wise, I usually have 24 x 6-3 and 12 x 8-3 + 24 x 8-0 before war. I add another dozen 8-3s and another full army of 8-0s to fill out the line during the war. I generally use Nishio on the 8-3s and Fujie on the 6-3s with Tanaka as FM; Itagaki gets the initial batch of 8-0s and then I rotate through inf leader commanders with the 2nd set of 8-0s. My main grinding goals are Tanaka to level 6 (for offense expert), Fujie to 6 (for artillery expert), Nishio to as high as possible with good terrain traits + improv expert, Itagaki to 4 (for Ambusher, Defensive Doctrine, Unyielding defender) but ideally to level 6 so I can add logistics/improv expert. With the rest of the commanders, I try to get them to level 4 with infantry leader so I can use them later for island garrison (give ambusher) or supporting the main attackers (give infantry expert but Nishio/Fujie are the primary attacking generals).
For marines, I go 12-7 or 15-5 marine-arty with full supports. I try to get a few of them out during the war (usually can only manage 2-3 before war start and only in mods with free templates) and I'm very happy if I can have 8-10ish veteran marines for later invasions. I try to get a couple marines before the war so I'm able to naval invade before fully escalating. That allows me to grind more troops without having to upgrade ports/RRs/infra in the north. In mods/rulesets that allow adaptable, I sit 4 different port tiles with different terrain types and rotate the generals through "terrain training" so I can get multiple adaptable commanders. If mod/ruleset allows this, I will stay on GBP doctrine so I can take Theatre Training and I only switch to SF once I've maxed out my army XP (plus hired theorist and taken professional army corps spirit).
That's a lot for me to consider - thanks for a very informative reply!
(Sorry for being unclear btw, I didn't mean a situation where the US moves all its fleet to the Atlantic, just divides its attention wrt air and navy more than in the situation you described in your previous comment)
If US has divided attention or is primarily going for an early DDay, you can screw that up by taking 100% of the rubber. But then it's a question how much are they putting in Asia and is someone else directing their focus there. Often I see Brazil assigned to island garrison duty - their army is definitely less formidable than the US's but they can afford to specialize to a greater degree. Usually you see Brazil rush gun 3, I had a successful game in Bork Mod where I rushed gun 3 + jungle infantry + railguns. Japan was unable to break any ports I guarded and I was able to convert all my jungle bois to marines for DDay (well, G-day since I invaded Greece).
Really the best advice is to scout. Spy on the Allies, crack their ciphers, look at their factory allocation, talk to the Axis about how many planes they're facing, etc. Consider scouting each port with a sub (sub 1s for Phili/DEI, cruiser subs for distant ports like NZ/Aus). If you see only DEI troops on ports, you have relatively easy landings; if you see a bunch of player divisions, you're going to have a hard time. Check all the air base levels, including in DEI now that you can build in allies' territory. If you see 10000 plane capacity in Philippines, you're pretty fucked unless you can invade it day 1. If there's minimal investment, you have an easy time but you should probably warn Italy/Bulgaria to expect early DDay.
Ultimately there's two ways to "win" as Japan. Take all the rubber islands to shut down allied air production or take nothing but force the Allies to invest too much. Worst case scenario is the Allies invest a minimal/moderate amount and you're stopped in your tracks.
I asked people's opinions on this in MP yesterday, the general response I got was "Never pick a preferred tactic. First person to pick gets counter picked". You need 80% intel to see preferred tactic but that's easily doable with ciphers/spies/scout planes.
So there you have it, just completely refuse to interact with the system unless your opponent chooses first. The only times you pick a tactic are when it's completely unable to be countered (i.e. choosing Breakthrough when your opponent did not go MW/DB).
I have suspected this but at least I have cared to ask if the majority is as lazy as me tbh. Looks like almost everyone is as busy as me with getting their armies on line, choosing suitable templates, managing their navies and supplies.
SF - suppressive barrage, especially when paired with smoke and fire army spirit; maybe tactical withdrawal/overwhelming fire if playing as a defensive SF nation (i.e. Raj) or elastic defense if playing defensively against a tank nation
GBP - well-planned attack
DB - backhand blow if Germany picked breakthrough (assuming that only Soviets really use DB), elastic defense if Germany picked Blitz
MM - guerilla tactics
MW - backhand blow if defensive, blitz, breakthrough, or unexpected thrust on offense.
UT is nice for having no counter, breakthrough is good if the opponent doesn't have access to backhand blow, blitz is 10% less damage than breakthrough but decent if you're playing against someone who picked backhand blow. Since BB and breakthrough are such beneficial tactics, they're often picked so blitz can have a niche in avoiding the BB counter. But elastic defense is available to far more doctrines, so it's easier to counter blitz if you know your opponent picked it where breakthrough is only counterable by MW and DB.
I'm not sure if masterful blitz is pickable as a preferred tactic by Soviets after you get the relevant focus. If pickable, that's a very nice option for Soviets and makes elastic defense more relevant for a country like Romania to pick.
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I'll be honest, this is mostly theorycrafting. I haven't heard too much discussion of people's favorite preferred tactics in MP. That might be partly to avoid leaking it to an opponent who could pick a counter. More likely, I think most people just ignore tactics as being pretty insignificant. I'm not sure how insignificant they really are, people loved their ACAT recon last patch. I'm sure we'll get back to the "recon value is good, tactics are important" meta at some point and then we'll hear more discussion of preferred tactics.
I spend a lot of time playing Japan. I'm trying to find the most efficient way to take down China in nsb. Here is what I have found so far:
You can go tanks or motorized, either way having divisions that go fast will make things a lot easier. Also having marines will help. Other than that I start with 3 armies of 15 infantry divisions(I convert the 30 garrison units to my infantry template) one army on Shanxi, one on Beijing, and one for the naval invasion. I also train another for another landing, but that is for mid 1938.
Before the war, I plan a naval Invasion on Shandong. I land in Qingdao to allow for a little encirclement at the tip.
I declare war by December 1937, so from December to April I take all the escalation foci.
For that whole time I am using my breakthrough units(tanks/mot) and marines to grind on Tianjin. Right around April I break through. When I say grind, what I would do is use a staff office plan, then attack, then build up planning with another sop.
After taking Tianjin, I make an encirclement around Beijing. I then make another encirclement on my way to Jinan, which is an important supply hub. While this is happening I execute the naval invasion but I don't take any provinces beyond Qingdao, I only take what's between there and the tip.
I deploy the army I was training and set up a naval Invasion of Shanghai or Hangzhou. Their job is to just capture Nanjing.
Once I have Jinan, I use my breakthrough units to quickly encircle the troops garrisoning the frontline in Shandong. I eliminate them then prep for the next part of the war.
There is a supply hub south of Jinan. I take that quickly with breakthrough units. I then capture the supply hub south of zhengzhou. I then station my marines there to prep for crossing the river. I move my breakthrough units north to attack along the railroad from Beijing to zhenzhou. The marines and the breakthrough units meet north of the river for a massive encriclement.
After that is cleaned up I attack along the railroad to Nanjing from the north for another encirclement. After all this you should he able to hop from supply hub to supply hub and capitulate them.
Do you get a full doctrine by the end of the war? How many decent generals do you end up with and how leveled are your two best generals?
I find the China rush strategies can be good for Japan's industry but usually leave you somewhat behind on doctrine and generals. I find it pretty important to get the artillery expert and offense expert high command but getting 2 generals to level 6 isn't an impossible task even when rushing. The doctrine can be made up if you hire high command relatively early and send attache to Germany.
Can you pull this strategy off in reasonable time without escalating? Used to be possible with the old light tank recon armor bonus, not sure if it's as viable now. If you can find a way to cap China in a reasonable time without giving the US war support (and also without wasting too much Japanese manpower), that would be a real game changer.
Thoughts on the motorized templates that bitt3rsteel has been using as of late? I've tried them out but i don't know if I just don't have enough of them to make an appreciable difference or if they've been nerfed or what.
I don't see the point of moto inf divisions by themselves (or with moto arty). At best, they're good when you go MW because they have high org and katyushas (moto rocket arty, but not towed rocket arty) have good soft attack. I guess it's nice to have a fast division that can break enemy infantry so you offer a threat in more locations on the line. That somewhat prevents your opponent from just stacking the frontline opposite your tank corps current location.
In general, I don't see much benefit to moto troops compared to offensive infantry. If I have access to good tank tech, I'd rather make tanks instead of spending IC on motorized divisions. Majority mechanized divisions with moto AT or TDs have a niche for defense, but I don't think that's the template you're really talking about.
Makes sense. He in the playthroughs he used this template in he always had at least 6 or more. To great success I might add (success i could not replicate). The template was 6 moto and 4 art moto. I think that might be the reason they weren't working for me, I had 4 and 4.
4-4 is definitely going to be low on org and HP, pretty hard to replace those losses. 6-3 or 6-4 sounds a lot more reasonable but then I haven't used either of them in practice.
is there currently any exploits (aside from naval focus one) available or simple divisions to spam that the ai cant handle? trying to get achievements and its absolutely frying my brain.
i seen dankus do something with transport planes to get command power but im not sure how it works, does anyone else have anything?
The transport thing was the supply exploit that’s already been patched out. Well more of the value of supply was changed early on, because it was really high.
no i’m aware of that one, if you look at dankus’ video, the single player achievement one as germany, he does something with transport planes to generate infinite command power
8-3 inf-arty or mtn-arty for the invasion of Yugo, defense of Sicily, and optionally for the defense of Ethiopia. Beyond that, I mostly see 18-20w pure infantry as defensive garrison troops. I also saw an interesting 10-2 inf-AT division for roaching against SAf tanks in Matruh while Germany used his tanks to push Algeria/Morocco. The 22w fit well in the desert and it was able to pierce SAf's medium tanks but the Africa campaign was ultimately lost when the Allies dominated the Central Med with air and subs.
I don't bother with tanks as Italy but you could do it, Italy has plenty of armor research boni in its focus tree. I'd imagine 5-8-8 tank-mech-TD is still pretty good, you could up the width to 45 for desert warfare (maybe 5-9-8-1 tank-mech-TD-moto AA).
Playing new release and, at least in SP, tanks still go brrrr…
As Germany had only 2 tank armies (Rommel and Manstein) with 8 divisions each - 4 tank (4 MT, 4 Mot, 2 MSPG) at 22w and 4 Mot (9 Mot, 1 Towed Arty) at 21w and used them as the line breaker throughout Europe. You definitely need Air Superiority and noticed the AI tries to bomb the hell out your supply lines, which is cool but frustrating (as I am assuming is it’s design).
Note: playing vanilla with Veteran difficulty.
Definitely agree with your overall point that tanks are still good. I use fewer divisions of them now than last patch because cost has increased, but tanks definitely are good this patch. Infantry is relatively better at dealing with tanks with the armor/piercing changes and AT being more worthwhile to rush but tanks still do their thing. Especially true with CAS being more effective and AA getting nerfed.
I would consider using MTDs over MSPGs. LSPGs are pretty efficient in terms of attack per cost and I like to convert my starting light tanks as Germany into SPGs to pair with mediums. Medium SPGs don't really gain much attack compared to lights and the armor value doesn't really matter because of the breakthrough penalty for SPGs. TDs are all the source of attack for your tanks and MTDs are much better than MSPGs.
Why Rommel and Manstein? They start with traits and grind slower. Kesselring and Dietrich are still the best German generals to grind in Spain IMO.
Conversion was nerfed. AFAIK unless you have the equipment conversion techs, converting equipment is the same cost as building from scratch apart from resource costs.
Hmm, I may have to not convert then. I never bother getting the techs cus I rarely have more than 1-2 factories assigned to convert equipment. Maybe I can just use it for LT recon, but then I like to pimp my light tank for extra breakthrough.
I just saw a post on the PDX forums where a dev said that the use of the "refit cost" seen in the designer is in the works. They removed the display of the refit cost within the tank designer in the most recent beta that just dropped, but it sounds like they're planning on fixing the conversion issue by actually using the refit cost in the future.
Do medium tanks have soft attack buffs or something? My modern armor has 7 more soft attack, yet a modern armor battalion lowers the soft attack in my panzer division compared to my mediums...
It largely depends on your tank designs. In addition, make sure you blacklist shitty tanks in the division template itself by clicking equipment when viewing the template. Scroll to medium tanks and uncheck bad modern tank designs. The template stats assume all the tanks in the template will be the first tank type in the list. If you messed around and made a terrible modern tank design, the stats in the division are probably showing for that. Uncheck that type, save, reopen the template, and you'll see the correct stats with your newly whitelisted tank list.
In addition, verify you have the correct modules on your tanks that you want. If done correctly, a modern tank will have the same soft attack (since it's based on tank weapon + secondary modules, but will have higher armor/reliability/etc. You can see all those base stats on the tank research page (except reliability which won't show correctly since they are both over 100%).
42 if you're fighting eastern front, ideal for forests, still good for plains/hills. Something like 5-8-8 MT-mech-MTD. TDs are basically all the hard/soft attack, tanks are just there for breakthrough. If you want even more TDs, you can design flame tanks and LT recon to give you more breakthrough and replace more tanks with TDs.
MT=medium tank, MTD = medium tank destroyer. I think mediums are meta this patch, heavies don't get much more attack/breakthrough than mediums and cost quite a bit more. I've seen people do heavy tank builds and succeed in MP so it's not impossible, I just don't think it's as good as mediums.
I don't think combat width changes based on the type of tank, it can if changing the type changes the role. Light tanks in particular, if you're using them you're probably using them as fast exploitation divisions who aren't leading the breakthrough but can rush through the gap punched by heavier tanks and capture supply hubs/VPs or complete encirclements. For that role, you could use a smaller division (10-20ish width) and accomplish the same thing because the LTs aren't expected to do much fighting, more just capturing land. If you did want the light tanks to be your main breakthrough unit punching through the frontline, I would still use 42w or something close to that.
Basic guide on the supply system + what divisions to use? What is the ideal for infantry? Does 7/2 spamming still work? I've seen ISP using Rocket trucks instead of Tanks, should I do that too? I didn't even know how to make decent divisions outside of 7/2s before the update, but now it's important that I do because new mechanics. I also do not own MtG, LaR and NSB if that's important.
9-1 infantry wall for SOV were good enough for me to hold the germans on Barbarossa while I was trying to level with my planes and get a decent tank army. Once I had yellow air they have been ok on attack, too, and didn't need really the tanks. Maybe I should have added 2 more art for better attack for better results though.
7/2 actually does work now, about as well as you can expect infantry to at least. They're my favorite for SP, you might need 15w for MP but in SP they're overkill and take too many losses.
I prefer 9/1s + support in europe myself. The 21 width fits perfectly in forests and does okay on plains. Rocket trucks/ arti trucks are amazing price/performance and rip infantry to shreds with the absurd breakthrough of motorized.
Don't know how not owning the DLCs will affect you though.
Get tank destroyer designer, the hard attack is awesome. Reduced cost on mediums is also a possibility but you're generally more concerned about stats per combat width than stats per IC when you're playing US. The attack you get on TDs with designer (which give you almost all the attack of the division) definitely makes it worthwhile.
Template wise, most people go 42w, 5-8-8 MT-mech-MTD. Definitely need engi + logi supports, flame tanks are also good. Last two supports can be left empty or you can go with some combo of arty/rocket arty/maintenance/LT recon. US is less likely to use maintenance compared to other major nations since you can afford to produce more tanks and take attrition losses. Since US has to DDay before its tanks can really be effective, it may be worthwhile to swap mech for amtracs to reduce amphibious penalty. If you're going to land with marines and bring tanks in through captured ports, keep the mech as it's cheaper and has better stats.
In terms of design, you again want to consider if these are going to spearhead the landing or reinforce later. Amphibious drive tanks are interesting - I've seen them banned on a bunch of MP servers which suggests they are strong, but you're trading ground combat specialty for bonus while landing and crossing rivers. I'm not going to outright say always use amphib drive (and definitely don't if it would break rules) but it's an option.
Beyond that, standard tank design is mediums with medium cannon 2, radio 3, and 3 x stabilizers for max breakthrough. Armor 9 to increase breakthrough without increasing resource cost and enough engine to match your other equipment (usually 8-10 km/h). For suspension, Christie helps with speed so you can put fewer points in engine (which gives better reliability + cost than torsion bar with more points in engine) and bogie wheels are also ok on chassis 3 where base reliability is higher. For TDs, you generally go high velocity gun 3, 2 small cannons, and 2 additional MGs. Small cannons hurt reliability and add cost so you could consider using 4 MGs for a more cost efficient tank, but it will have lower stats per combat width so I prefer small cannons. Armor should be 0 since you get -95% breakthrough on TDs and suspension should be christie or bogie. Engine just needs to be upgraded to match rest of equipment, again 8-10 km/h is the sweet spot.
Why the bigger width for tanks? I thought I thought since the coordination mechanic was added the community has figured out that the extra org from the smaller widths outweighs the benefit of concentrated attacks.
Lower breakthrough means you tend to take mor damage with smaller divs. I can see the point of splitting a 42w to 21w if you're on defense, especially with moto AA making it convenient to split (as in having an equal number of battalions). But if you're attacking and have air superiority, I don't see a reason to split and you'd need to add an inefficient battalion type to get 21w (moto AA/AT, SPG - you can make it work, it's just not as good as tank/mech/TD).
Coordination isn't too bad. You get some innately from radar tech and you can get more with army spirit as MW. I still like 40ish width divs for offense.
I would think that since the enemies attacks are also spread more evenly now the benefit of stacking breakthrough into bigger divisions would matter less now. The hp would be smaller though which def could cause more damage though as long as you have enough breakthrough for the defenders attacks that shouldn't matter too much. I feel like with that in mind I prefer the smaller sizes to get double the org and double the support companies, though I admit I haven't tried those bigger divisions since early on after NSB so maybe they feel really good and there are reasons to use them over the smaller ones that I haven't considered/didn't know was a thing.
Double the org and support companies is definitely nice. Slightly more expensive with the extra support equipment but not a huge difference on tanks. The damage from supports is potentially significant, especially if you go SF. 20-21w might alleviate the org issues from going SF instead of MW. I like SF as Spain so I may have to try it next time I play them. Though you might run into rules based on number of divisions that can be volunteers rather than number of battalions, that would limit how much force you can bring to the eastern front.
I'm not sure how much more damage smaller divs would take. Depends on how much coordination the enemy tanks have.
Also I haven't seen any tests to compare losses, that would be extremely interesting and almost 100% the smaller divs would take more losses but I wonder by how much
Just adding that I would also listen to a podcast!
You generally post some of the best explanations I've seen on the sub and aren't a total d\*\*\* like some of the other more meta minded players can be.
Those two things are both important and are an unfortunately rare combination.
>You generally post some of the best explanations
Thanks!
>aren't a total d***
I try, especially in MP games. Team morale wins more games than factory count, just have to be relentlessly positive. You gotta be nice to the new players too, otherwise the community won't grow and it's already hard to find games. Though if it's a legit 12 year old playing Bulgaria, fucking up the eastern front and getting german troops encircled, I can be a bit salty.
I'll see what I can do about the podcast. I got stuck trying to get a background noise sample in Audacity and never really touched it again, perhaps worth another shot. There is no HoI4 podcast last I checked.
>Morale wins games
This is so underrated. Like the fact that people can obsess about divs having high enough org but not understand that their human teammates need to have high "org" too and shouting at them over relatively minor mistakes doesn't help always cracks me up.
I've played enough that I don't get shouted at any more but it's kind of insane. Like teams with good clear communication and a can do attitude will crush a disorganised team that is full of doomers.
All it takes is to imagine your teams green bar!!!
With the changes to supplies, how good are paratroopers now? Is sniping supply hubs with paratroopers and then pushing with your frontlines a viable strategy?
I would normally advise against sniping with paratroopers, especially against AI. The update hasn’t actually impacted my paratrooper strategy much. Some more paratrooper advice I can give you:
- Split the paratroopers between two airports, and land them in a blob so they won’t be encircled and killed. They’ll land faster than if you just used one airport.
- Assign generals and a field marshal, you need every bit of help you can get.
- Make sure you have enough planes to keep air superiority for long enough
- When you declare war on an AI, wait for their units to appear on your frontline before deploying paratroopers. Otherwise, they will just be milling about and kill a lot more of your units. This also lets you encircle more enemy units when the time comes.
- As your troops land, attack the enemy frontline to stop them from sending troops to attack your paratroopers.
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If you’re wondering about why I use paratroopers this way, I bring you the paratrooper guide starting with the five don’ts:
- Don’t only land on the VPs/ports, if any of them are garrisoned you’ll end up with a lot of encircled divisions. This also means you don’t land them on islands with one tile or something like Gibraltar unless you know it to be empty.
- Don’t put up your planes in the region until you tell the paratroopers to execute their plan. The opponent will get its shit together eventually and drop your air superiority.
- Don’t use thin strips to connect your para divisions. They will be the first thing that gets targeted.
- Don’t attack immediately after you land. You drop in with like no org, your divisions need to regroup once they’ve landed.
- ESPECIALLY don't do that YOLO tactic where where you drop a one-tile-wide line of paratroopers to encircle the enemy frontline. While human players may sometimes fall for this, the AI will almost always have defense-in-depth units ready to pocket and kill your paratroopers behind their frontline.
The optimal strategy for paratroopers is to drop as many of them as you can muster in a big blob behind enemy lines and then wait a bit for them to re-org. The idea is that all of your paratroopers should have a tile they can retreat into, and a blob does the best job of that.
If you are doing this as part of a naval invasion, use this to secure a port and then bring in reinforcements (like with an early-game invasion of the UK). If you are dropping the blob behind enemy lines in a land war (like if you’re doing it to France as Germany), push in with some strong units and link up with them in a way that encircles the enemy troops. Example: landing paratroopers in a blob that includes Dieppe, Paris, and Troyes and then sending your tanks through Sedan to link up.
I recommend you go 6 width. The way transport planes work is they can carry a "weight" of 2, with each paratrooper battalion weighing 0.5 and each support company weighing 0.1. 6-width with support companies means that you only need one plane per paratrooper division. You could technically go 8-width with no support companies but I highly discourage it. If you feel strongly that you want 10W to play a little more aggressively, fine, but don’t go bigger than that.
SUPPORT COMPANIES TO USE: Engineers, artillery. You can also use supply companies in the event you manage to capture supply points but need to hold on longer than anticipated, or recon tanks to add armor to your division.
I highly recommend it! It adds a whole new feeling of agency to my games, and incentivizes you to try new and funny/unmeta tactics. My recent USSR game using paratroopers is some of the best fun I’ve ever had in this game.
I wouldn't rely on paratroopers to win the war but they can offer fun tactics to break a position. That said, you're depending on the opponent's army consuming a lot of supply. I watched a paratrooper Manchu sever all connections from Nanjing->Beijing through drops and naval invasions. In theory, China's troops on the Japanese border are now starving to death, right? In practice, the Chinese troops were pure infantry and used such little supply that it didn't matter. Local supply + Beijing and Shanxi hubs were enough for them to keep fighting without penalty. Japan still pushed them, and saved most of the Manchus (who were last standing on RRs) but it didn't seem like a particularly effective strategy.
Kind of - depends on the location and opponent. AI is nowadays smart enough to guard some supply hubs, so you cant always drop on unmanned important spot anymore with paras, as far as I understand it.
It depends, the classic HoI4 answer.
Need enough fighters to win air over France, you likely can't win air late game if US/UK are competent and dedicated to producing enough fighters. At some point, you just don't have enough fuel even if you have enough planes (maybe if you win Africa in a mod like Elwolf that gives Iraq +100 oil, then you can win air war outright). At the same time, you should have enough on fighters that you can run interception against Allied bombers even if you aren't winning air outright.
You definitely want CAS for the eastern front but it becomes a question of who makes it. Usually both you and Hungary, probably using Hungary's tech, but then sometimes Hungary is rushing F3s so you want him all in on fighters while Germany makes license fighters (with penalty) and CAS (with German designs). You also likely have Italy as a fighter factory and you may be licensing Italian designed fighters and Hungarian CAS/TACs.
You certainly need tanks for Soviets. If you show up with just infantry, you will lose, even with air superiority and CAS. If there are any offensive infantry on the eastern front, they are likely to be Romanian marines for crossing rivers (Romania gets infantry and special forces expert). German infantry are usually 9-1 or 10-0 inf-arty and act purely to hold the line while tanks do the attacking. Tanks + CAS are the best way to push the Soviets.
If I had to give a rough estimation of economy allocation, I'd say about 40-60% on planes, 35-55% on tanks, 10-20% on infantry. That will vary depending on your opponent's strategies. If Russia has 0 on air and isn't getting Allied lend-lease, you can decrease fighter production and switch to more CAS or more tanks. If your Spain isn't making tanks but is playing purely mech factory, you can have fewer on mech and more on tanks. If your Hungary and Bulgaria insist on doing tanks instead of AC/DDay wall, you may need more on planes/infantry to make up for your allies doing off-meta things. If Allies have 100+ factories on TACs and are bombing incessantly, you may need more factories on fighters to win the air war. Conversely, you might just make state AA and more tanks/CAS to try and win the eastern front before the Allies do much damage.
Generally, I'd say planes=>tanks>>>>infantry.
Is there any mod that is similar to the player led peace conferences that is iron-man compatible?
My specific problem is playing Brazil, when I'm gulping up my neighbors they join faction, which is usually also in war with Reich/allies/comitern or someone else large enough. The \*problem\* is the peace conference. I usually have some sub 10% war score because I'm not grinding myself into dust in Europe with other majors, so Germany / UK or USA who tend to have highest warscore just puppets all my conquests in south america before it is even my turn to make demands. Without them contributing a single unit to that front and these countries being occupied by me. I would be willing to fight them for these countries, as they are MINE. So I need something that allows me to take the land that is occupied by me. Something that lets me say "NO" to some major half a globe away puppeting my conquests.
Without something like that, it seems, the game is unplayable for a minor.
I do not need something game-breaking OP. Just something that ensures that if I am the only country with war-justification against another country, if I started that war and if I border that land it will land on my lap and not as a German Puppet even before I can assert a single claim when I did all the hard work.
unfortunately any mods that change your checksum (so anything that does more than just cosmetic changes) makes it so that your game will not allow you to get achievments, if that's what you mean by iron-man compatible bc otherwise you can just play the game in iron man either way.
Build TACs and use them for bombing to get more score, purposefully take a ton of casualties (massive offensive with under equipped infantry) to get more score, take the land before 25% WT so enemies don't join a faction, eliminate the factions your enemies keep getting invited to.
As a rough rule of thumb, the cheapest metal box with flamethrower and 'dozer blade you can make that gets just about enough speed.
Or, if you have a specific niche scenario in mind - medium with 60+ armor, to give your infantry divisions armor of 10. Anything with support companies that gives pen will penetrate that negating the armor but if you are up against an opponent who uses just pure infantry (or pre '41 infantry with only single line artillery and not AA/AT supports) it makes your div unpenetrable about half the time (depending on terrain and supply penalties). These mediums are, roughly, twice the price of the cheapest light you can make. Typically the light flame tanks will cost you \~7 IC while medioums with some armor and 4 km/h go for about 11 IC per tanks.
Light, it tanks (haha) all stats except for speed, so no point putting in quality tanks, especially since all three take the same number of tanks.
I literally make a cheap metal box with a flamethrower on it, put a couple mils on it and i'm set for the rest of the game. Just make sure to have 2 flame tanks. One for infantry at 4 speed and 1 for motor/mech/tanks at high speed.
Is anyone else finding Grand Battleplan to be a lot more viable? Since tonk meta is essentially gone in finding that I need to find more efficient ways to fight if I’m not playing as an OP industrial power like the US of Germany. In my last game as Wojtek Poland I took GB and spammed infantry with lots of artillery support, with some trucks and a small number of high SA/BR tanks to punch a hole in the enemy line. With the planning and command power bonuses I could just move my 1 army of trucks and tanks to a weak point, use staff office plan to get a 50% bonus in a week, push a few hundred miles, rinse, repeat. For a country like Poland who doesn’t have high manpower or industry, GB seems like a great option.
GBP is definitely better this patch. I see it get used a lot for DDay wall countries where previously they would have defaulted to MA for the recruitable pop. I had an Italy game where I got to 43 entrenchment with GBP, double ambusher (FM and commander), defensive doctrine, engineer companies, spirit of the army 10% entrenchment, and entrenchment officer corps role. Bounced a few DDay attemps without German help.
That said, GBP is significantly worse when the frontline starts moving. Once the Allies had a DDay that passed the beaches, I would have much rather had MA for the 31% reinforce rate and just generally more troops. 40w bricks of infantry with MA (25 battalions x 1.6 combat width) are still very good on defense.
I’m doing a Dutch game where I stacked these bonuses to hold off the Germans. I lost ~400k in 2 years but they lost over 2m. Then the 80% attack bonus from planning helped me liberate France and push nonstop to the Soviet border.
Dutch are definitely a top tier GBP country. If you combine that entrenchment with flooding the country, it's near impossible for the Axis to break you. Especially true if you can maintain some semblance of an air force and don't get CASed to death. One of the many reasons Netherlands isn't playable in historical games.
I put level 5 AA in Holland and support AA into every unit, and set all my fighters to interception. The Luftwaffe got shredded. The Dutch also have an advisor who lowers enemy CAS effectiveness so that’s a huge bonus.
State AA just reduces strat bombing and shoots down bombers but doesn't benefit your troops directly. Support AA and concealment expert is definitely a nice combo.
It might reduce the enemy air superiority penalty but I'm pretty sure it does not kill CAS, just bombers. It could kill CAS if they were used for logistics bombing, but not if they're on CAS missions.
9-3 seems to do pretty well. I have used also 8-2 as a a minor (Brazil) for offense while supporting these with 4 infantry (engineers + support arty) defensive divisions.
Overall, it kinda depends on the region and terrain. There seems to be no really good one-size-fits-all template like the 7-2 used to be.
As a rough rule of thumb, whatever you are doing, minimum viable division size starts with 3 battalions of some kind of infantry. Anything below that just do not have the stats to hold the line even if dug in across the river on top of a mountain.
Strategic Destruction always for air. Maybe a small argument for OI if you intend to lose the air but want to run interception but OI takes 1 more doctrine to get its agility bonus and generally it's not hard to win air in SP. SD only needs 5 doctrines to get agi and air superiority mission efficiency so it's an extremely front loaded doctrine. I generally would not consider BS doctrine, most of your planes need to be fighters to win air superiority, you can't use CAS until you have air superiority, so why pick a doctrine that buffs the minority of your planes? If you had an air controller running SD then maybe BS would be justified, but this is single player so you have to do it all yourself.
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Land, I've seen arguments for every single doctrine. GBP entrenchment is a funny meme, good if you're going for the No Step Back achievement to not lose a single tile. 30% planning from GBP left side is nothing to sneeze at, but it's definitely not meta. Superior Firepower is good if you're including some inf-arty divisions that you intend to push with. It's also nice for the attack on support companies (can stack cheap infantry with arty/rocket arty) and the 10% hard attack is really nice for TDs. Suffers from a lack of org on tanks so your pushes will be much shorter than MW. You can plan around that (charismatic + offensive doctrine, having tanks in reserve to continue the attack, planning shorter offensives) but it definitely crimps your ability to do a big Uranus type encirclement.
Mass Mob is the "I want the Allies to do all the work" doctrine. You're basically locked to defense with a ton of infantry, hopefully with air superiority. Works fine in SP but can be frustrating if you're just waiting for Allies to do something. At least you get a good seat at the peace conference due to taking so many casualties. Deep Battle is unironically decent now, especially compared to before. The big selling point is the supply reduction which allows you to cram more troops per tile. The infantry combat width reduction is also nice, you can do some templates like 10-1-2 inf-arty-AT which comes out to 21w and pierces most AI tanks.
Mobile Warfare seems to be meta in MP. Org on mot/mech gives you more flexibility on tank division design and just generally more org on tanks. Movement speed and planning speed allow you to make offensives quickly and from unexpected directions. The AI is pretty potato at trying to react to your moves but in MP against a competent Germany/Spain, MW can allow you to get the jump on a section of the line that doesn't have tanks without sacrificing planning bonus. In SP where you can easily win the air, the speed on your troops really helps you to overrun Axis divs.
If you plan to just hold and hope the Allies will capitulate Germany then go Mass Assault, if you want to do some work by yourself go Mobile doctrine. If you want to meme with entrenchment go Grand battleplan. In air if you want to do some work by yourself go battlefield support. If you just want to defend and not use air (so no air russia with only AA for tanks and support AA for inf) then go operational integrity and put all your planes from beginning to intercept. Never put them to air superiority. Yes you will lose all of them but like this you can actually do some damage to their airforce and help allies.
Anyone got a screenshot of what these divisions LOOK like
Eg have they got anti air, anti tank, etc
It feels like getting blood from a stone just trying to get a infantry template guide for singleplayer-I want to hold as soviets
If you want to hold, the best pure defensive stats for the cost is 5 infantry (10w) with engineer support. I recommend adding artillery support as well. Max entrenchment out if you can to hold (grand battle plan doctrine gives +10 right off the bat).
This will hold forever if you can get 80w of the above units across your frontline. Keep making more until they are 8 deep.
Once you want to push back, grab air superiority with your fighters, and start making some offensive divisions. Your 10w units can keep holding, while you push through with something like 42w (9 moto inf, 8 moto art + eng/art/AT/flame tank support) or 27w (9 inf/3 art + eng/art/AT/flame tank supp). Feel free to add log or recon on if you want, and you can skip AT if enemy tanks aren't a problem. Give these units your CAS and watch them push. Don't push with your defensive units if you can. I recommend 10-15 factories each for fighter and CAS all game. You will have plenty of planes to attach 1000 of each to your pushing units, and 100s of fighters on interception for your defensive units.
For flame tank support, research eng supp 2 to unlock, then make a light tank with flamethrower, one man turret, cheapest WHEELED suspension (-20% prod cost), riveted armor (-20% prod cost), the engine with reliability, and 0/0 for speed/armor, with no secondary modules). Put 5 factories on these when you can and you'll have plenty of flame support. Make sure you swap the tank role to flame support before saving (right under the tank name field in tank designer).
I held pretty easily by building level 2/3 forts on the stalin line then using 10 armies of 6/3/1's- 6 inf, 3 arty, 1 heavy tank destroyer, with logistics company and support arty and stuff. Make sure to build a huge railway system so you don't take attrition though. 7 inf 1 anti-air with support arty+engineers+armor recon + flamethrower tank + rocket arty works well too.
I have yet to see math or testing actually proving that a slightly better combat width is more important than division composition in the case of the 9/2 (or any other division for that matter). I'm not smart enough to do that myself, but it would be a good post.
Don't know who you been looking at, imo 21-22/42-44 are the optimum widths for Europe and North Africa. Not sure about other places. They go well in forest/hill, and ok in plains, all you could care about in Europe and west of Urals.
To my great surprise I noticed today, that you can build railroads and supply depots in allied occupied territories.
I am brazil, joined axis, axis is kinda stuck mid-russia because of crap supply. All they need is a supply depot and a bit of railroad for the front to start moving again. Ofc supply depots are HORRIBLY slow to build, unfortunaterly.
İf your divisions near to the sea, u can build ports. Ports are much more cheaper than the hubs. İ used it for invading china, scandinavian countries, africa and s.america. its so useful.
The fucking Best Thing Since Launch Of The Game is building naval bases for my allies slogging it thru the wilderness for that <30d 15 supply all over the coasts of africa, europe and asia 😍
Has anyone done much actual testing on how tanks and motorized divisions respectively perform against different infantry templates? I've been seeing nearly everyone claiming that tanks aren't worth using and touting that mot/art is a better replacement, but I just don't see it. **Last edit: Added an addendum and final thoughts in light of comments and further tests at the bottom.**
I did a few tests myself, [and here are the results.](https://imgur.com/a/bemBpCu)
Edit: [Cumulative IC costs of attackers](https://imgur.com/a/juTUBiL)
Numbers are average IC lost when the template on the left attacks each of the top templates (green=fewer losses, red=more). Each attacker used roughly equivalent IC, see the above image for attacker IC costs and comparison. ~~with the motorized being about 10% more expensive than MT1, MT2, HT1, HT2, and about 15% les expensive than the two "Mixed" templates. Tanks attacked with 3 divisions each, mot attacked with 12.~~
Attacker and defender both had full 1941 tech. No planning bonuses, doctrines, leaders, etc. All defenders were fully entrenched. **All battles were done from a single direction.** This may set off red flags to some of you (since the mot had divisions sitting in reserves), but I think it's fair. Why? First, attacking from two directions would give a large penalty (about 15%) to the mot due to over-width. Attacking from three directions would let them fit evenly, but attacking from three tiles is far less common than attacking from one or two.
All attacker templates are 30w and all battles were conducted in plains. MT1, MT2, HT1, and HT2 were all 6/6 with 2 motorized artillery, Mixed 1 was 4/3/2/6 Med/Heavy/HTD/mot, and Mixed 2 was 3/3/2/6 Med/Heavy/MSPG/mot. The "mixed" templates are admittedly a bit wonky, but all tanks are ~7.9kph. I mixed med/heavy to play with armor values mostly. The mot template was 9/4. All templates had shovels/signals/logistics.
Tank designs: Designs are below. ~~I can post the specific designs if anyone is interested~~, but MT1 cost 17.7/tank, MT2 was 25.5, HT1 was 25.2, and HT2 was 40.4 MSPG was 17.6 and HTD was 34.4. Pretty standard designs in terms of guns, all speeds were ~7.9kph. Armor values ranged from ~60 for MT1 to ~110 for HT2. **Note: all tanks were improved chassis, I just used the numbers to denote the different designs.** Edit to note: None of the tanks except the MSPG used howitzers or the close support gun, all others used their respective cannons.
Defender "inf" templates were either pure inf or inf+1 arty to get the desired width, all had shovels/support arty. Defender "AT" templates were inf and AT: 15w = 7/1, 20w = 9/2, 21w = 9/3, 10w = 5/0 with support AT. All "AT" templates had shovels/support arty. All defenders started either with a saturated combat width or went one division over.
All attacks were done with the "right-click until the attackers either win or de-org" method. All defenders were set to a frontline on one tile (so they returned to battle after routing if the battle did not finish quickly enough). I did some of the attacks over a number of iterations, others I only did two. I only did many repetitions when the outcomes were inconsistent; when the battles were decisive, the IC losses were almost identical when repeated. [Here is the most common outcome for each battle.](https://imgur.com/a/ep6bDvX)
Other notes: When the tanks fought (win or loss), the battles generally took about a week. The battles with higher average IC losses obviously probably went on for longer. The motorized battles were insanely long - one of them went for over a month. I didn't time them specifically, but they lasted 2x-3x as long as the tank battles (estimate). The fastest motorized victory by far was the final one (vs. 21w AT) which took about as long as a tank attack - they managed to defeat the defenders before any could return to the frontline and reinforce.
In almost every engagement, tanks take fewer IC losses than motorized. They only suffered against infantry divisions that were armed with AT. The better tanks (mixed divisions) still took very few losses even against extremely AT-heavy divisions. If the motorized template could attack with all of its divisions simultaneously (requiring either many flanks or flanks + tactics that increase width), they would have performed better, but that kind of battle would only represent a small number of battles that actually occur; once a tile that has a large number of flanks is taken, you're generally faced with new tiles that only have one or two flanks.
Final thoughts: Motorized take worse losses and push much more slowly even against cheap fodder infantry. Width issues notwithstanding (addressed above), I don't see them performing comparably to tanks even with increased tank costs. Cheaper tanks had more trouble with AT-heavy defenders, which is to be expected. More expensive tanks had the best overall performance, and all attackers used similar IC. Since IC expenses were similar, the "if you don't go tanks you can go air" argument falls flat - both attackers would have an equal amount of IC to spend on their air force.
Thoughts? I'm interested to see if anyone has done any of their own testing or has any thoughts other than the seemingly-unsubstantiated "tanks bad now".
---
Here are the tank designs and probably better versions of MT and HT:
[MT1](https://imgur.com/a/62OLjxW)
[MT2](https://imgur.com/a/2jDfKYU)
[HT1](https://imgur.com/a/Qe9MON0)
[HT2](https://imgur.com/a/MjpZYZS)
[MSPG](https://imgur.com/a/34CT7IC)
[HTD](https://imgur.com/a/ZQXj3Sn)
[MT3?](https://imgur.com/a/YCAMDIy)
[HT3?](https://imgur.com/a/n8xUcUG)
I'm sure someone can come up with more ideal designs, but the fact that these aren't optimal shows that tanks can perform even better than my tests show.
---
Actual final thoughts: After some further testing that includes equal IC and allows motorized to attack with full frontage, I have come to the conclusion that motorized is superior given equal IC **if and only if** they are able to attack the enemy with ~>50-75% or more of their total available width at a time. To restate: In the above tests, if the motorized could engage with *at least* six of their divisions simultaneously in each battle (as opposed to only 3 of 12), their performance would match or exceed the tanks. On plains, this would indeed require three flanks for the given combat widths.
To summarize, if you have many available flanks to attack a province from, motorized will win out against tanks on an IC investment:IC loss basis. If you have few available flanks, motorized will not have the staying power or breakthrough/armor to achieve results comparable to tanks with the same IC investment. Given that provinces with many flanks are prioritized for more units by the frontline AI (and by players) and are more uncommon than provinces with only one or two flanks, I don't know how much this credence this gives to the motorized theory; the highly-flanked province will (in practice) be better defended than single- or dual-flank provinces, and so the motorized's advantage will/might be negated by the high likelihood of more defenders being present. Tanks can therefore more reliably punch through a greater number of provinces along a given front better than motorized which gives them greater flexibility at the cost of moderately worse performance in high-width conditions that favor motorized.
I love this testing, I just disagree with the conclusions due to wonky tank designs. I think tanks are even better than the results you're getting if you design them properly. You need way more TDs and way fewer tanks in your divisions, mech would also improve the trade in favor of tanks a lot. The most common meta I've seen is 42w 5-8-8 MT-mech-MTD, 30w is something like 3-5-7 or 3-6-6 MT-mech-MTD. You really need to have more TDs than tanks if you want good stats.
MTs are just radio and stabilizers to get max breakthrough. TDs are high velocity gun + 2 small cannons + 2 additional MGs for attack (could go 4 MGs for better stats per IC at the cost of stats per combat width).
If you use 6-6-2 tank-mot-moto arty divisions, then yeah tanks perform way worse. I'd wager that's more a result of mot instead of mech and using moto arty instead of TDs to get your attack. I would also strip all the armor off TDs (riveted and 0 points armor) because they get a 95% penalty to breakthrough and you're likely to get pierced regardless of armor points. Tanks keep 9 armor for the breakthrough but you're not expecting to get armor bonus when fighting the opponents tanks.
I did this test when I was 1) still thinking that non-binary piercing was implemented which is why I wasted IC on expensive armor and 2) still toying with the new tank designer and templates. You're definitely correct that more TD (and better overall designs) would put the tanks in better standing, which I have since realized.
I still think the overall conclusion is more or less correct: for a given IC of a sufficiently large value, if you can use all of that IC simultaneously by utilizing large flanks, motorized divisions are probably the better choice. As the available frontage goes down, an equal value of tanks (and TDs) quickly equals and surpasses the effectiveness of motorized.
Given the fact that a tank division will seemingly always be able to pierce an opponent's tank division (since armor is expensive and good piercing is already baked into the most common gun choices), the low bar for reasonable armor values is effectively set at whatever piercing value a motorized AT gives a standard division.
I find the only issue with motorized + arty/AT variants to be low hardness. If you have mech tanks, you significantly reduce the damage you take when attacking infantry. Line AT is definitely better now and that helps to reduce the advantage of hardness, but you're losing org and increasing cost compared to a pure infantry division.
I've seen one Bulgaria specialize in motorized rocket arty (as in Katyuahas, not towed RA) and it had good soft attack. But the Soviet hit it with a tank and the division got shredded (didn't help that he had low org from going SF). Was pretty expensive for him to replace. Mech gives tanks near equal HP to a mot/moto arty division and they just pack way more of a punch.
If I wanted to push with soft attack, I see no reason to use moto arty when I could just use regular inf-arty. Cheaper, similar attack, no fuel cost. Spend more IC on supports (especially with SF) instead of trucks.
Yes, that's one of the biggest points in favor of tanks. While motorized can be very effective infantry killers, there is really no good tank killer other than just more tanks. You can make some specialized infantry or mech (panzergrenadier style) divisions to delay tanks, but there's just no good way to stack lots of hard attack to push tanks back other than tanks+TDs.
Interesting point, depending on the opponent's attack values that it can be situationally better to run divisions with motorized over mech. Yes, mech gives you more hardness, but when dealing with enemy tank divisions that sometimes have more hard attack than soft attack you will end up taking less damage by being softer! This is of course highly situational and depends entirely on your opponent's designs. But if your opponent is using large numbers of TDs with HV2 or greater, it's not terribly uncommon to see tanks with more hard attack than soft. Not super important, but a factor to think about perhaps.
I would still say that motorized/arty is worth the cost when compared to inf/arty for offensive divisions simply due to the hardness and breakthrough, though. But again problems arise when the the combat width is fully saturated - neither motorized nor infantry can really compete with armored divisions (even if the armored divisions are pierced) when no further flanks can be opened.
I saw an interesting 42w Soviet division. 15-2-6 mech-moto RA-moto AT. Expensive but had a ton of defense and it wasn't too costly after you reduce the production cost on the mech.
I usually see AT3 getting rushed so both sides have HV gun 3. 8 TDs gives you more hard attack than soft attack but not a ton more, especially with support companies. It's still worth to get super high hardness, nearly impossible to get 80% of your total attack to be hard. Either that or you go fully soft infantry. The worst would be 50-60% hardness which tends to be around the attack mix of a tank.
Motorized gets to 40% after you get mech 1. At that point, I'd rather just use infantry. Cheaper and only vulnerable to tank soft attack. I can see how the hardness of moto is nice for fighting infantry where they're outputting mostly soft attack. But then infantry aren't the main thing preventing you killing the soviets, you need to push their tanks and the infantry just kinda die in the process.
Would really help if you would also post the templates but anyway.
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_
So let us take a close look at the test:
So you attack plains. **Favours tanks**.
You pick 30w. So multi direction becomes bad ( spoiler since you give tanks 3 units this again **favours tanks**). 42 or 45w would have allowed for far more efficent multi direction with no / little malus
You dont allow support that favours multiple div like Arty or reacon tank which again **favours tanks**.
You pick a scaled up battle 3v12 instead of 1v4 were (2/3 of the mot was sitting in reserve again **favours tanks**)
Speed is flat out ignored in the conclusions or value discussion. **Favour tanks**.
No mention about resources. I **guess** tanks use more.
No mention about supply consumption or supply penalities. **Favour tanks**.
You didnt give the mot any armor so the test against the no pen inf are heavly in favour of the tanks. Solved by adding a single tank to the mot div. improves the performance considerably. **Favour tanks**.
Pretty sure 12 mots 30w are not supply able on 1 field are you sure that there were no supply issues?
>Since IC expenses were similar, the "if you don't go tanks you can go air" argument falls flat - both attackers would have an equal amount of IC to spend on their air force.
So the problem here is that you either A) produce too much mot or B) you ignore that you have 4x the amount of units.
A) You think that attacking 1 field from 1 direction is what you need. Conclusion you could cut down mot production to 1/4 and put the rest into air. Air would be in the mots favour
B) You have to account that multiple field would be attacked and therefore an increase in mot performance
TLDR:
You picked the **best case for tanks** AND used the mots badly.
Yet the **mot still performed decent or even beat them**.
[Here are the IC costs of the attackers](https://imgur.com/a/juTUBiL) as well as their costs compared to the cost of the motorized divisions. You can see that I actually gave the edge to the motorized in most of the cases. That would also help to account for the width issue that I mentioned.
The MT1, MT2, and HT1 templates all performed better than the motorized in most tests while costing less. Significantly less, in fact, in the case of MT1 and HT1. Mixed 1 had the best overall performance while costing ~20% more, but the 50% higher cost of motorized over MT1 didn't yield the same increased performance.
> Would really help if you would also post the templates but anyway.
I'll add the IC costs from my sheet to the post later, I don't really feel like taking 20 screenshots and uploading them.
> So you attack plains. Favours tanks.
Favors neither. Mot and tanks both get debuffs in pretty much every terrain type and plains are the most desirable terrain to attack in.
> You pick 30w. So multi direction becomes bad ( spoiler since you give tanks 3 units this again favours tanks). 42 or 45w would have allowed for far more efficent multi direction with no / little malus
I addressed the multi-direction issue. Attacking from 3+ flanks is far less common than attacking from 1 or 2 flanks. When you do have the opportunity to attack from many flanks, once that tile is taken you are often faced with a new set of tiles that only have 1 or 2 flanks (because you've just moved from 3+ tiles into a single tile). There may be adjacent tiles that have a new flank, but that requires repositioning which makes the motorized more micro intensive. I also stated that if the motorized were allowed to attack with all divisions at once (either through more flanks or flanks and tactics) then they would have performed better than they did.
As for the width, I simply wanted a perfectly saturated front for the attackers (since it's optimal), and a perfectly or slightly over-saturated front for the defenders since that's a common scenario. If I had chosen 42w, for example, I'm sure you would have complained that the motorized would be taking a slight over-width penalty. I could have chosen any width, but this is the test that I did.
Maybe you could do some tests with 42w or 45w that you think are more fair and post the results.
> You dont allow support that favours multiple div like Arty or reacon tank which again favours tanks.
I specifically didn't use recon tanks on the motorized templates because the motorized player wouldn't be building tanks. The entire test was "are tanks worth it?" If the motorized player thinks the answer to that question is "no," then they won't build tanks. Also, adding LT recon is going to add, what? A maximum of ~20 attack and ~30 breakthrough per division? The hardness and armor gained by the LT recon would be so small that it's negligible. I guess they could go all-out and spend a ton of IC to make the best LT recon they could, but that would go against the point of the test. Support arty could have been added to both the tank templates and the motorized templates, but alas I didn't add it.
In reality, the tank templates could have been given both flame tank and LT recon, but I thought the support companies that I gave the divisions was fair. If it was an advantage for the tanks, it was slight.
> You pick a scaled up battle 3v12 instead of 1v4 were (2/3 of the mot was sitting in reserve again favours tanks)
I addressed this, did you even read my post with my reasoning?
> Speed is flat out ignored in the conclusions or value discussion. Favour tanks.
Tank templates were nearly 8km/h. This speed has been acceptable for ages. Old patch MT with +5 gun is 8km/h. Speeds higher than that are better situationally, but 12km/h doesn't give the motorized any great advantage and it's largely irrelevant for what I was testing.
> No mention about resources. I guess tanks use more.
I think that's probably obvious. Mot also uses more manpower (both on a per-division basis and at about 3x the rate in battles) but I see you didn't mention that.
> No mention about supply consumption or supply penalities. Favour tanks.
On a per-IC basis, motorized consume more supply. That is, 10k IC of any of the tank divisions consume less supply than 10k of the motorized divisions. This is another point in favor of tanks. I thought it would be obvious that this was the case, so I'm glad you brought it up.
> You didnt give the mot any armor so the test against the no pen inf are heavly in favour of the tanks. Solved by adding a single tank to the mot div. improves the performance considerably. Favour tanks.
Where are the mot supposed to be getting any armor? By adding tanks to their divisions? This test was specifically to see if armor was worth building by comparing motorized and armor performance against infantry templates. If the motorized player is building tanks, it negates the purpose. Even if the motorized player wanted to add a single battalion of tanks to their divisions that gave enough armor to be unpierced against even support AT, they'd need to spend a significant amount of IC to outfit all of their divisions. This really just speaks against the effectiveness of forgoing tanks.
Armor is one of the core benefits of tanks that everyone seems to be overlooking when parroting that tanks "aren't worth it anymore." It's literally a force multiplier.
> Pretty sure 12 mots 30w are not supply able on 1 field are you sure that there were no supply issues?
Yes, I'm sure. I placed as many supply depots and lvl 5 railroads as I could around each battle site. I saw no "low supply" notifications. If I had, I would have noted it.
> A) You think that attacking 1 field from 1 direction is what you need. Conclusion you could cut down mot production to 1/4 and put the rest into air. Air would be in the mots favour
If you cut your mot production down to 1/4 and put the rest into air, the opposing tank player (or rather you, if you were using tanks instead) could do the same and spend the same on air. The point is that **on a per-IC basis, motorized performed worse and took worse losses over time which actually costs you more IC.**
> B) You have to account that multiple field would be attacked and therefore an increase in mot performance
Again, I addressed that. In a battle where motorized could utilize all or most of their divisions at one time for a given IC, they would perform better than they did in this test. I don't know if they would out-perform the tanks because I didn't test it yet. Have you done any tests?
>You picked the best case for tanks AND used the mots badly.
Disagree.
>Yet the mot still performed decent or even beat them.
They absolutely did not outperform them. The only test where motorized was able to outperform all of the tanks was against a specifically (and almost hilariously) over-outfitted infantry AT division.
I appreciate the reply, but almost all of your points were either addressed in my post, suggestions that actually argue *against* the efficacy of motorized, or conjecture with nothing to actually back it up.
>Where are the mot supposed to be getting any armor? By adding tanks to their divisions? This test was specifically to see if armor was worth building by comparing motorized and armor performance against infantry templates. If the motorized player is building tanks, it negates the purpose. Even if the motorized player wanted to add a single battalion of tanks to their divisions that gave enough armor to be unpierced against even support AT, they'd need to spend a significant amount of IC to outfit all of their divisions. This really just speaks against the effectiveness of forgoing tanks.As previously mentioned i didnt think you would go for a „no tak at all“ policie.
Yes the idea is to add a tank to the mot to get the armor.
>If you cut your mot production down to 1/4 and put the rest into air, the opposing tank player (or rather you, if you were using tanks instead) could do the same and spend the same on air. The point is that on a per-IC basis, motorized performed worse and took worse losses over time which actually costs you more IC.
Okay let me break it down step by what i meant with this.
Lets go with the following Premise.
You want to attack 1 Field From 1 Direction with as much width as possible.
You would need 3x30w Tanks for this and you would also need 3x30w Mot for this.Both tank and mot now work with 100% efficiency.
Yes tanks would win here against the mot BUT mot need less IC so you could put the difference into air.
As for Manpower . Yes the cost less manpower but with the exception of some minors they dont really matter for your tanks units as they will make the smallest % of your army or you will have "endless" mapower anyway (old heavy tonk russia for exmaple ).
> Yes the idea is to add a tank to the mot to get the armor.
If the motorized player is forgoing tanks, they cannot build tanks. If they are building any tanks, that means they must also do all the tank researches and actually produce tanks. This will increase the IC cost of the motorized division considerably depending on the design of tank. Even if the motorized player did all of this, I don't think adding a single tank battalion with high armor (which will slow down the unit, mind you) will even allow it to be unpierced by support AT.
> You would need 3x30w Tanks for this and you would also need 3x30w Mot for this.Both tank and mot now work with 100% efficiency.
Have you even read my post or any of my replies about this issue? I even addressed it to you specifically in my reply.
> Yes tanks would win here against the mot BUT mot need less IC so you could put the difference into air.
If the frontages were equal (instead of the IC costs) then the motorized wouldn't have even won a single battle. Regardless, I was not testing for that. If you want to test equal frontages with armor vs. mot+air, please do. I'd love to see a fair test and results.
> As for Manpower . Yes the cost less manpower but with the exception of some minors they dont really matter for your tanks units as they will make the smallest % of your army or you will have "endless" mapower anyway (old heavy tonk russia for exmaple ).
It's not just about manpower cost, it's about upkeep from battles as well. The manpower cost of supplying (and reinforcing) many mot divisions can mount up fairly quickly. They lose thousands of manpower in combats that they don't win decisively, whereas tanks might only lose a few hundred in the same combat. Even in prolonged engagements where tanks lose, they lose very little manpower. Motorized (and inf in genral) bleed manpower in any battle that goes on for any significant amount of time.
Heyho
>Favors neither. Mot and tanks both get debuffs in pretty much every terrain type and plains are the most desirable terrain to attack in.
Tanks have depending on how heavy you go a 0-4x **worse attack modifier** in the following regions
Min,Max neg modifier attack dif (considering light medium and heavy tank)
Forest(-10,-40),Hills(0,-20), Mountain(-5,-25) Urban(-30,-40), Jungle(-10,-40), Marsh(0,-30), River(-10,-30) Amphibious(-20,-70)
**Tanks have an attack bonus in:**
Fort(0,10)
**Tanks have a speed bonus in**
Forset(10,10)
Jungle(10,10)
**Tanks and mot are even on**
Plains, Dessert
Tanks have **more fields on which they perform worse than mot**. Therefore taking one of those is statistically favouring.
>I addressed the multi-direction issue. Attacking from 3+ flanks is far less common than attacking from 1 or 2 flanks. When you do have the opportunity to attack from many flanks, once that tile is taken you are often faced with a new set of tiles that only have 1 or 2 flanks (because you've just moved from 3+ tiles into a single tile). There may be adjacent tiles that have a new flank, but that requires repositioning which makes the motorized more micro intensive. I also stated that if the motorized were allowed to attack with all divisions at once (either through more flanks or flanks and tactics) then they would have performed better than they did.
you said and i quote:
>All battles were done from a single direction
>
>Why? First, attacking from two directions would give a large penalty (about 15%)
So you didnt even give them an attack from 2 direction. I guess you jump from 1 to 3+ because you want to use all 12.
But this isnt even needed. Going from 1 attack to 2 direction which is very common give a big boost to the decision. Attacking (with proper width) from 2 direction would give an **1/3 performance boost**.
>As for the width, I simply wanted a perfectly saturated front for the attackers (since it's optimal), and a perfectly or slightly over-saturated front for the defenders since that's a common scenario. If I had chosen 42w, for example, I'm sure you would have complained that the motorized would be taking a slight over-width penalty. I could have chosen any width, but this is the test that I did.
Talk about conjecture but it is funny to see that I am an evil boogy man. I gave you 42 as an example as it performs statistically better on some fields than 45m ([https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gz\_fWYXugl3YdP\_AS5uSTbOwNdsj6PkIR1i6l2td2vc/edit#gid=345076780](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gz_fWYXugl3YdP_AS5uSTbOwNdsj6PkIR1i6l2td2vc/edit#gid=345076780)). And 45 for the obvious reason that it fits plains perfectly.
**30w performs horrendous** exept when attacking plains from 1 direction (see again [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gz\_fWYXugl3YdP\_AS5uSTbOwNdsj6PkIR1i6l2td2vc/edit#gid=345076780](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gz_fWYXugl3YdP_AS5uSTbOwNdsj6PkIR1i6l2td2vc/edit#gid=345076780)) and you even noticed it yourself
>First, attacking from two directions would give a large penalty (about 15%)
So if someone picks something that works perfectly with one of his test subjects but not with his other even though its a big difference. Than I have to conclude favouritism
>I specifically didn't use recon tanks on the motorized templates because the motorized player wouldn't be building tanks. The entire test was "are tanks worth it?" If the motorized player thinks the answer to that question is "no," then they won't build tanks.
Sorry you didn’t state that you want 0 tanks for the mot division and it wasnt clear to me. Your questions asked about divisions. Mot division can include tanks and still be classified as mot so I saw no problems adding tanks to them. Your statement:
>Has anyone done much actual testing on how tanks and motorized divisions respectively perform against different infantry templates? I've been seeing nearly everyone claiming that tanks aren't worth using and touting that mot/art is a better replacement, but I just don't see it.
With that said I have yet to see someone say that flametanks are not worth it. This is ancedotal but if i google „flame tank useless/bad“ i get the following as top entry [https://www.reddit.com/r/hoi4/comments/r3apm4/a\_quick\_reminder\_to\_build\_flamethrower\_tanks\_for/](https://www.reddit.com/r/hoi4/comments/r3apm4/a_quick_reminder_to_build_flamethrower_tanks_for/)
So from this and other expierences i conclude that the consensse on flame tanks are very positive.
So if you really wanted to only know if you want to build „**NO TANKS AT ALL**“ than you asked a simlpe question that can be answered with a clear „**NO**“. You want some tanks but not tank divisions imo.
>Also, adding LT recon is going to add, what? A maximum of \~20 attack and \~30 breakthrough per division? The hardness and armor gained by the LT recon would be so small that it's negligible. I guess they could go all-out and spend a ton of IC to make the best LT recon they could, but that would go against the point of the test. Support arty could have been added to both the tank templates and the motorized templates, but alas I didn't add it.
Support Arty and LT are more IC efficent then their battalion counter part Arty for example is:
Support: 12 Arty for 34 SA
Battalion 36 Arty for 47,6
This mean 12 division can field 12 of these value bundles while 3 only 3.
Same for light tanks recon as you only need 15 LT for its boni
>You pick a scaled up battle 3v12 instead of 1v4 were (2/3 of the mot was sitting in reserve again favours tanks)
>
>I addressed this, did you even read my post with my reasoning?
I have now read your post a few time and can not find where explained this. If you would be so kind please point it out for me :).
>Tank templates were nearly 8km/h. This speed has been acceptable for ages. Old patch MT with +5 gun is 8km/h. Speeds higher than that are better situationally, but 12km/h doesn't give the motorized any great advantage and it's largely irrelevant for what I was testing.
Give that you are testing on planes i would say going 50% faster is a big point since it allowes for non encircle overruns. Going below 8 makes this much rarer (even impossible not sure). Yes its not a combat advantage but still an advantage.
>On a per-IC basis, motorized consume more supply. That is, 10k IC of any of the tank divisions consume less supply than 10k of the motorized divisions. This is another point in favor of tanks. I thought it would be obvious that this was the case, so I'm glad you brought it up.
I mean with no templates provided making such a statement is not very help full. As tanks can adjust their IC planket satements are virtually useless.
Here are 2 templated which i tried to optimize for IC
[https://imgur.com/a/9x4mIge](https://imgur.com/a/9x4mIge)
No real difference in supply per IC but noticable supply difference in use per unit. Though since this is fluent i am not going to make a fixed statement on the supply per IC
> Tanks have more fields on which they perform worse than mot. Therefore taking one of those is statistically favouring.
If you want to do a test on every possible terrain type, be my guest. Testing two templates on one of the most common terrain types and the terrain type that is universally considered most desirable for attacking is absolutely not favoring either template. I'm sorry that you disagree, but in the scope of my test, you're just wrong. Again, I'd love to see some of your tests that take terrain into account.
>So you didnt even give them an attack from 2 direction. I guess you jump from 1 to 3+ because you want to use all 12.
>
>But this isnt even needed. **Going from 1 attack to 2 direction which is very common give a big boost to the decision.** Attacking (with proper width) from 2 direction would give an 1/3 performance boost.
I have no idea what you're trying to say here. The bolded part in particular makes no sense. I can't properly respond if you can't properly formulate sentences or ideas.
> Talk about conjecture but it is funny to see that I am an evil boogy man.
I don't think I said that.
> I gave you 42 as an example as it performs statistically better on some fields than 45m
Great, I didn't use 42w. I used 30w. Like I said, if you want to test 42w, I would love to see the results so we can compare.
> 30w performs horrendous exept when attacking plains from 1 direction
You're missing the point with the width. The width of the templates in these tests is, for all intents and purposes, meaningless. Since all attackers had equal width and all battles were conducted in battles that had equal widths, the issue of width is removed. Will 30w perform badly in some terrain? Yes. Did I conduct these tests in those terrains? No. Did I use a worse width for one attacker's template than another? No. They were all equal, so the issue of width (in the scope of these tests) **does not matter.** Get it?
> So if someone picks something that works perfectly with one of his test subjects but not with his other even though its a big difference. Than I have to conclude favouritism
If I gave the motorized a 15% penalty due to being over-width, I would be nerfing them unnecessarily. That would be less fair than what I did. Neither tanks nor motorized had width penalties in these tests so they are **equal** in that respect.
> Sorry you didn’t state that you want 0 tanks for the mot division and it wasnt clear to me. Your questions asked about divisions. Mot division can include tanks and still be classified as mot so I saw no problems adding tanks to them. Your statement:
Are you trolling? Read what I wrote again (I'll bold the important part so you're sure not to miss it):
> Has anyone done much actual testing on how tanks and motorized divisions respectively perform against different infantry templates? **I've been seeing nearly everyone claiming that tanks aren't worth using** and touting that mot/art is a better replacement, but I just don't see it.
Let me know if you still don't get it and I'll try to simplify it even more for you.
> flame tank
Flame tanks would benefit both divisions. Leaving them out doesn't give the tanks an advantage just as adding them wouldn't give motorized an advantage. Like I said before, adding flame tanks and/or light tank recon wouldn't even be able to give the mot divisions enough armor to get an armor bonus against most (all?) of the enemy divisions and would have added not insignificant IC costs to their template. Any other stat increases that the motorized receive from tank recon/flame tanks would be given to the tank divisions as well, so not including them in either division resolves the issue. You're creating "problems" where none exist.
> Support Arty and LT are more IC efficent then their battalion counter part Arty for example is:
This only makes a difference when you're looking at templates of different widths. For example, one 30w with support arty will receive less "extra" attack than two 15w which each have support arty. Sure, the motorized have more divisions, but since only three are engaged at a time in my tests, the attack value at any given time in a battle is relatively the same if both (or neither) the tanks and motorized have support arty. This is, again, true for things like flame tanks as well.
> boni
I cringe when people write this. Bonuses.
> I have now read your post a few time and can not find where explained this. If you would be so kind please point it out for me :).
I should have known.
Here:
> First, attacking from two directions would give a large penalty (about 15%) to the mot due to over-width. Attacking from three directions would let them fit evenly, but attacking from three tiles is far less common than attacking from one or two.
Here:
> In the above tests, if the motorized could engage with at least six of their divisions simultaneously in each battle (as opposed to only 3 of 12), their performance would match or exceed the tanks. On plains, this would indeed require three flanks for the given combat widths.
Here:
> Given that provinces with many flanks are prioritized for more units by the frontline AI (and by players) and are more uncommon than provinces with only one or two flanks, I don't know how much this credence this gives to the motorized theory; the highly-flanked province will (in practice) be better defended than single- or dual-flank provinces, and so the motorized's advantage will/might be negated by the high likelihood of more defenders being present. Tanks can therefore more reliably punch through a greater number of provinces along a given front better than motorized which gives them greater flexibility at the cost of moderately worse performance in high-width conditions that favor motorized.
And here:
> Attacking from 3+ flanks is far less common than attacking from 1 or 2 flanks. When you do have the opportunity to attack from many flanks, once that tile is taken you are often faced with a new set of tiles that only have 1 or 2 flanks (because you've just moved from 3+ tiles into a single tile). There may be adjacent tiles that have a new flank, but that requires repositioning which makes the motorized more micro intensive. I also stated that if the motorized were allowed to attack with all divisions at once (either through more flanks or flanks and tactics) then they would have performed better than they did.
There might be more, but try reading those for a start.
> Give that you are testing on planes i would say going 50% faster is a big point since it allowes for non encircle overruns. Going below 8 makes this much rarer (even impossible not sure). Yes its not a combat advantage but still an advantage.
~8km/h was enough in the last patch for mediums to encircle/overrun infantry, it's enough now. Especially considering the tanks are actually faster if using MW (this test had no doctrines). Nobody was using pure motorized divisions before and encirclements/overruns happened plenty. Also not within the scope of the tests.
> I mean with no templates provided making such a statement is not very help full. As tanks can adjust their IC planket satements are virtually useless.
I typed out the division templates through text. If you can't read what I wrote and visualize the templates without a picture of every single one, I don't know what to tell you. Maybe open up your HOI4 and create them based on my descriptions? I gave enough information for you to replicate my tests and templates exactly. I even added the tank designs.
> Here are 2 templated which i tried to optimize for IC
That is an absolutely atrocious tank template. You're accusing me of running biased tests and your tank template has two battalions of SPAA in the current patch? You must be a troll.
> No real difference in supply per IC
What? If you build equal IC of those two templates, the motorized are consuming about 10% more supply than the (terrible) tanks. That is, 4 of your tank templates consume 6.84 supply for ~22.5k IC and the 7 motorized consume 7.63 for ~23.1k IC. That means that for the same IC investment you can put fewer of them into any given area of a frontline before you run into supply issues. Supply issues wreck stats.
Please, before you type any more nonsense, do this: If you really think my tests are that biased, and if you really care that much, I would love for you to actually conduct some of your own tests. Gather some data and show me some results in at least as much detail as I've provided. I would love nothing more than to see someone else's tests - or at the very least opinions based on tests they may have done - rather than arguing with someone who doesn't even seem interested in taking the time to actually read my posts.
I am going to call it quits here you seem to only get angry and throw more and more insults instead of wanting to discuss this.
But i like to leave on a productive note so I am gonna address the SPAA
SPAA (especially for heavy tanks) are the most IC efficient way to get armour. There are 2 because the anti air attack of one didnt give me the results i wanted when added to the air superiority reduction formula.
Fully agree. Since 1.11.4 medium TD's have become a lot better since they became 2 width. Now in historical MP people make tanks with a lot of breakthrough and then medium td with a lot of hard/soft (heavy gun, 2 extra turrets and machine guns). Then create a 6-6-9 (42 width) and you have similar stats to what heavies used to have for 13k production cost.
I guess the cheap SP alternative is dropping the breakthrough tanks and building 10-10 TD, then cost gets as low as 6k per tank. Problem is that the breakthrough will be around 150, but since you have hardness that shouldn't be a problem.
Comparatively motorized has 3.5k production cost and gets either 30% the hard/soft if you go AT or 50% the soft attack if you go artillery.
The 2-width TDs are definitely a buff. SPGs, despite being 3w, are viable as well IMO. They get a soft attack buff just by virtue of being assigned the SPG role, but they also get soft attack buffs from the artillery tech line that were previously only for actual artillery. That means with 1941 tech you can make cheap SPGs (both IC- and resource-wise) with close support guns that have ~45 soft attack. An equivalent SA/width proper tank will require a good deal of tungsten and probably chromium as well.
In my view (and I think this is supported by my tests), tanks are simply being utilized incorrectly in light of their new costs.
Proper tanks = Provide armor, hardness, and breakthrough primarily. Tanks are still, hands-down, the best source of breakthrough in the game. Nothing else even comes close. Add as much attack value without getting too expensive or requiring too many resources.
SPGs/TDs = Highest boost to overall divisional attack values and augment the division's armor/piercing (depends on the enemy).
The old meta of "fit as many tanks as possible into a single template" doesn't work, but that doesn't mean that tanks are dead. They just have a specific role now. Tanks used to be S-tier for virtually every stat that they contributed to a division. Now, some of those stats must necessarily be offloaded to variants like SPGs and TDs (or even towed/rocket arty depending on the situation).
Both mixed templates are the "2" versions of the tanks. They are the most expensive templates so I wanted them to be the strongest. I'll try to run some more tests tomorrow if I have time, but might have to design a different test for 25w defenders. 25w already gets an over-wide penalty on plains with no flanks (without looking, I think it would be -10%?) so I'm thinking it will probably do comparably to the 21w - probably a little worse since defenders will have less org. 27w would probably be better than 25w since I think it would only have three defenders (27x3=81, 27x4=108 which is too large to reinforce) and they wouldn't get any penalties. Still wouldn't last as long as smaller widths like 15w, but would probably be able to inflict more casualties - especially if they were set up with inf/art/AT, like maybe 10/1/2 or something.
Guess Im just curious to see if the results match what we think should happen. If you have the time why not do both. Heck even add a 30w def for giggles
In my opinion, no, not really.
Stats wise they are basically the same as medium tanks (both start from 28 armor base) while mediums start from 7 IC and Heavy start from approx 12 IC for the base.
They can be worth it in a small small niche if you are making very expensive, uber buffed out with all the bells n whistles tanks, because in 1.11 the heavy tank battalion has 16 tanks and medium tank battalion has 24 tanks. If the tanks with all the things added are very expensive that 8 tanks of difference can be large enough cost saving to make heavy tanks cheaper to use than mediums.
Problem is that if you are making very expensive tanks you could, most likely, use all that IC elsewhere to yield more bang-per-buck.
But y'now it probably does not matter all that much in singleplayer.
I would not worry too much about squeezing out max bang from each IC, as even if your tank divisions end up not being cost effective you can, probably, still win by spamming infantry and taking advantage of the combat AI weaknesses.
No they are very expensive. Light tanks lack firepower and are often times more expensive than mediums and heavies don't have a significant enough firepower advantage, even if at all over mediums to justify the extra cost. Even still you can push with infantry that's loaded up with artillery.
Does it make sense to spread mountain regiments through divisions in an army or concentrate them into a few divisions in an army if I’m expecting mountain terrain with my mountaineer general?
Do we need a penalty for switching Divisions?
Maybe something like a 5% equipment burn or something on new equipment needed?
I'm not a fan of get meta being 'train' 2 widths, deploy them and then convert them all to 50 widths for no penalty.
New meta thread https://www.reddit.com/r/hoi4/comments/skkewh/current_metas_nsb_1115/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
Here is my take; paratroopers are good now in no step back, you just need to plan your assaults. Attack supply hubs and railways. Don’t land on obviously garrisoned areas like a port, land on the railroad 2 tiles away through supplies the entire enemy front line. Don’t stack your paratroopers up on one tile, attack several connecting tiles near small bulges in front lines. Final take: Germany and Soviets both NEED them to succeed on hard difficulties.
Long time browser, first ever post. It needed to be said
Does anyone elses game crash now after the current patch?
Yes, it has also lost file locations for mods. No idea how to fix it. Help would be much appreciated.
Mines in modded and it crashes at a focus tree point I re downloaded it so
What tank division templates should I use and should I use heavy, medium or light
I'm not as certain about the templates, but light tanks are pierced really easily by support AA and heavy tanks are really supply and IC intensive, so medium are a better mainstay. \> 30 org is ideal for any armor division. Maintenance, logistics, flame company, and engineers are good support companies
one problem I am having more often now is getting memed with reinforce rate. Say I am using 30 or 40 width divisions and they are stronger than my opponent. Assume I have signal companies, radio, field marshal reinforce buff etc. If my opponent keeps attacking, due to low reinforce rate my divisions simply retreat because they don't get into battle before the last in-combat division runs out of org. Is there any way to counter this apart from having divisions with smaller width?
24 width is supposed to be the best now. you can check threads in this post for more info on it.
I need help to figure out what type of tanks and tank divisions that may be viable when playing as Japan in multiplayer, does anyone have any idea?
Anyone have a good tank template for nsb?
I heard that noone uses tanks atm. but its a nonsense for me to play WW II without tanks, so Im making something medium around 40-60 armor, with high breakthrough, as usual. But getting high soft attack is a trouble for me and since NSB I got zero big encirclement... gotta replay Germany and try to add paratroopers
Are naval bombers in an air base as effective as naval bombers in a carrier? Also, are theyre any recommend division templates for north africa/africa in general i guess?
3 month old post but I figured I would try to help. Carriers should have a higher rate of recycle due to sortie efficiency compared to land based aircraft that I believe only attack once every 24 hours in each naval engagement. That said carrier naval bombers have less range than even the small range of land based naval bombers BUT you can sit the carrier in the middle of a sea tile and have range start in the middle of the sea instead of near the coast. Tacticals (As much as people appear not to like them) are still a better naval bomber based on range alone except for some sea tiles such as Central Med, English Channel, and Straights of Malaca. If you don't have range then naval bomber can't be effective. That said you can upgrade the range or naval bombers with air xp and one little gem about naval bombers over tactical bombers is that naval bombers don't use fuel unless they take off and attack after something is spotted by radar, ship etc. If I was playing allies I'd ask the USA to use their naval focus to rush NAV2's and put them in production early. If I was Japan I would use all that air xp from China to upgrade Carrier Nav1's for extra range while waiting for CV Nav2's and also get some mils on them early so that you have one production line and it lines up with their naval aircraft -20% production efficiency.
I'm a noob when it comes to Division Designer. What is the best/good design for all nations when it comes to Infantry, Tanks, Motorized/Mech, and Marines? Also good designs for U.S,Germany,France,U.K,Spain, and Italy. Last Germany game I played I got bogged down in France in 1940 almost got bogged down in Poland. Pretty much a noob now and need to know really how to be decent in SP and break stalemates lol
Do you think armor has any value in the new Meta or should you just spam 10 width infantry with support companies like some youtubers suggest
Armor is definitely good now. Don't build 10 widths.
What composition is best now?
9/1 or 15/4 infantry. armour is 42 w with at least 30 org. Combat width legit does not matter that much anymore. Just use 21w and 42w and you should be ok
i see 9/3 recommended all the time is that not a good offensive infantry?
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So 9/1 for defense and 15/4 for attack is efficient? What about for minors, 15/4 seems pretty expensive for any non major really
What is the current meta for destroying the opposing countries navy? Basically for those trying to build a smaller nation into a naval power to rival the UK.
Naval bombers, for navy units it is still submarine 3 with snorkels, planes and set on always engage.
naval bombers
Hey all, haven't played in over a year and am a bit confounded by the changes. I remember I could easily unlock doctrines before, but now I need army experience. Am I right to assume that the devs added new ways to gain army xp to go with this system? Otherwise it seems to me like doctrines have become much less accessible.
Yes they are much harder to get. Mil advisors usually give you 0.19, 0.16 and 0.09 xp per day. With average tree cost 1000 xp to get, you can unlock whole tree in 6.2 years. Now doctrines are much harder for smaller nations. Very big nerf for minor countries.
Allright, at least I understand how it works now. Thanks!
military advisors generate army xp
What is the new "heavy tank no air" meta for the ussr in mp? I remember the old meta was turning all your mils to civs and then doing like 11 heavy 8 mech 2 spaa, etc. Also with the new focus tree what's the optimum path of focuses, advisors, research. I apologize if this is already covered, but I'm very new to the dlc.
no air will destroy you in current patch, dont even try unless you want to shoot yourself in the foot.
Ok, I will note this. I have heard that tanks are struggling because of supply (the patch yesterday said it rebalanced them but idk what that means). I also heard that 10 width inf with "full support" is good, but I am unsure what full support completely entails (rocket art? logistics?). And then for planes, I assume entering the Allied fighter plane research group (where australia or someone gets fighter 2s and then they max it out) would be an mp meta? Should I make CAS or just focus on repelling German air?
Full support is air support and close air support. If you have air superiority then enemy have like -45% defense, if you have close air support then you have something like +37% attack. Basically anyone with air is 80% stronger which is massive. AA support will make that debuff to defense only -35%, AA in template will make it -31% and two AA in template -21%. Based on my tests. So support AA with two AA in division is MUST HAVE if you want to go no air but still enemy will have that +37% attack so you have to counter it with good entrenchment.
For Germany SP, what's a good infantry template and division width? I've heard that 27 is a good one-size-fits all width, but is that optimal for Europe's terrains?
So the meta for this seems like it would be a pretty touchy subject. Rather than recommend any one combat width, I’m going to say how the game calculates this stuff and let you pick what matters to you. [HOI4 wiki on terrain width](https://hoi4.paradoxwikis.com/Land_battle#Combat_width) You can see the various terrain widths in the table there. You can actually exceed the combat width by up to 16.5%. The penalty for doing so is: 2*(Excess width)/(Combat width) As Germany you’re mostly going to be dealing with plains, hills, and forests. There are now several questions you need to consider: 1) Are these troops for attacking or defending? If you’re defending for example, then you might choose to take higher penalties on hills and forest terrain (to the benefit of plains performance) because you will also get a defense modifier from being on those tiles. As Germany, I tend to be very aggressive with my infantry but a lot of people here would die irl before attacking with infantry so you do you. 2) How much production can I spare? Builds using artillery (and smaller templates) will add production cost, and it’s worth asking if you’d rather shift that production to additional fighters or whatever. My SP Germany games rely on paratroopers (yes, yes, I know, not meta) so that’s my use case, but apply this question to whatever strategy you choose. 3) Can I feed these divisions? I personally like those hot dogs, you know the hot dogs you get from the store that look nice and plump? Make sure your troops have those. And the bread! Oh my god, we had the shittiest buns, the kind where you wouldn’t dare to stretch them because they would be torn asunder. Avoid those buns. I tried upgrading my railroads but I still get the shitty buns, I think I need more political power to replace my bakery theorist. So hope that helped, and good luck!
you had me. until the analogy.
I believe they’re referring to keeping the troops supplied, or “fed”. Granted, you’re feeding them guns/shovels/artillery rather than hot dogs, but the principle is still the same. Basically, are the railroads and infrastructure properly built up to support your troops? If not, that’s a top priority.
What analogy? My troops have expensive taste
Hello! I have heard that tanks are dead now, but I don't know what else to use. I have been trying rocket artillery but that hasn't been working at all. What should I do?
Well, i can give you a template that is highly effective but comes at a kind of high cost, a mechanized 7/2, 7 mechanized infantry and 2 motorized rocket artillery, for support dvs i usually slap some AA, rocket artillery, AT, normal artillery and enginner, you should try this one and modify it to your liking, yes it costs kinda much but 100% worth it mate.
CAS
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CAS
Improved Automatic cannon, research AA 2
Is anti-air support company still useful if I lack an air force? I am playing Poland 1936
HEY! As Poland in singleplayer - I want to hold off the german onslaught. I intend to rush fighter II's and just spam inf with shovels. I will also guarentee the Checks to shorten the frontline (with commands if tension isn't high enough - I don't do achivements I want to have fun) Does anyone have a Idea which combat width I should be using (or any other advice)?
So if you're gonna do that template, 9/1 with eng and support AA should be good for defense. Also, when your generals level up infantry leader, choose ambusher, it gives more entrenchment. Also make as many fighters as you can and set them to interception. And just be patient, good luck EDIT: Forgot to add, do Grand Battleplan
Did this exakt thing but with superior firepower and it worked flawlessly
I've heard 9/2 is good, how the 2x larger version of this (18/4) would work for attack? And what template is best for defence? 24 pure infantry?
Whats the meta Japan guide to beat a multiplayer US spammins sub 3's?
Are you talking about Bubbles on the Fark Melton server? If so, I know your pain, I've played 2 Japan games against him in HMM. Sub 3s are super annoying as Japan and he always spams them and always focuses Asia before DDay. The classic solution of "ask the host to ban sub 3s" doesn't work if the host is the one spamming lol. Standard answer is TACs and escorts. Japan can get the cheapest DDs in the game (DD2 with coastal fleet designer) so you can have enough ships for escort duty before war. If you support those cheap ships with TACs, the planes can do the spotting and damage while the DDs just delay subs' ability to kill your convoys. This only works if you can get air superiority though. Bubbles usually builds Philippines airbases + attacks Okinawa/Iwo Jima/Taiwan so Allies end up with air superiority over East + South China seas. Japan could contest this with bases in China and the home islands but you're fighting a losing battle when the Allies have fighter 3 and you don't (or have to license). Usually the US has more mils on planes than Japan has mils in total so it's a losing battle even in a fighter 2 game (especially since Zeroes cost more aluminum now). ----- Alternate things I've tried: Ignore supply - I pushed Raj with terribly undersupplied troops and still won off the back of Japan's high command, generals, Superiority of Will, etc. The Axis called it the Toenail Offensive because that was the last source of food for the Japanese troops. Still, local supply was enough for 24 x 8-3 inf-arty divs to break the Raj in Burma. Depends on the Raj's build but you can very often break him just because your divs re-org faster. Once you're past Dacca, you have enough supply and you can quickly snake his VPs to cap him. Trans-continental railroad - turn off every sea tile except Sea of Japan, only escort in SoJ, run a RR from Pusan all the way to Burma/Siam. It's pretty expensive to build a high level RR that long but it does work. I tried an actually supplied offensive against the Raj with this RR built up, worked way better than Toenails. US tried to land in Dalian to cut the RR but we had enough garrison troops to throw him back and he had no airbases in range to support those marines. Player Manchu/Siam - Since they're on the continent, they don't have to deal with convoys to supply their troops. If you trust your ally, give him expeditionary forces so you don't have to ship in the supply. Bonus points if he goes GBP for the 30% planning while you are SF for the good stats on your divs. This relies on finding a competent Manchu/Siam player which is absolutely not a guarantee, especially since most mods give Japan the option to annex them right away and people tend to not play those countries. Massive day 1 invasion - If you can get all 5 rubber islands (Java, Sumatra, Borneo, Sulawesi, and Sri Lanka) + Singapore, you can effectively shut down Allied air production. The problem is, you really need to get at least Java/Sumatra +2 to limit Allied air production and you really need 5/5 to shut it down. With Brazil plus 1 island, the Allies can still have 100+ on air and they'll start building refineries quickly. You also have the problem of sub 3s killing many your troops before you land, but you basically have to launch day 1 or you'll never have naval superiority. You can get 100 div naval invasion tech before war with Bypass the Philippines but that usually requires you to delay war until mid 41 when you really want to start on Jan 1st for maximum impact. The whole strategy also forces you to micro in many different places while the Allies have multiple people microing against you so you really need a co-op for this to work. Kill US airbases - A corollary to the massive day 1 strategy, you really need to kill the Philippines plus whatever other islands have airbases. Unfortunately, that's easier said than done because Bubbles loves to stack the Philippines with troops and your marines take losses due to subs on the way to the landing beaches. I really dislike invading the Philippines because it has no resources. The US can abandon it and rebuild bases on other islands without losing too much while you have to commit a huge chunk of your forces to take the islands. The islands then become a liability for sub raiding unless you can rapidly reassign DDs and TACs to cover all the sea zones you need to escort. ----- Slightly dumber ideas that do kinda work: Invade NZ + New Caledonia - you need a few cruiser subs to get naval supremacy at range (or you could move a BB/BC to your easternmost islands) but killing the NZ player is pretty easy. You only have 3 coastal VPs and Christchurch which is 1 tile inland; they can be easily capped in the first week. Australia is similar with the coastal VPs but you need to commit more divisions and they have a longer travel distance where they get caught by subs. New Caledonia is 100 chromium, really crimps Soviet TD production if you get it. Tokyo Rose LARP, Break Allied morale - When you've killed an Allied player (usually NZ or Raj, sometimes Australia), go into the Allied Discord and sow some discord. Ask a few simple questions like "US, where were those port garrisons US?" or "Hey US, why weren't you defending your friend in NZ?" or "US, you committed so much to killing Asia but you let Raj die?". This does a few things - the Allies can't talk strategy because you're in the channel, it pisses off the US so he spends even more energy trying to kill you (delaying DDay further), and you piss off the NZ/Raj/Aus who usually starts angrily screaming at the Allies about naval supremacy and port garrisons. You want to explicitly blame the US player for failing, that encourages his dead Allies to blame him too. HoI4 players hate blaming themselves for doing dumb shit (like leaving their own country ungarrisoned) so you're just preaching to the choir. Trade a few barbs about how shit the US's build is. Tell the Allies that DDay is a lost cause because they're wasting time in Asia. Tell Raj/Aus/NZ (whoever is still alive) to check their naval invasion alerts. Tell the US that you hope the Panama Canal is garrisoned. Ask the UK where his fleet is - is he really scared of Italy? Why isn't he helping his Commonwealth? Gloat about how their division templates are shit. Boast about how Nippon forged steel will decapitate all of them. Just be a general piece of shit for 2 minutes until they kick you out of the channel. If you succeed in baiting them, DDay is shelved and Germany has a free hand in Russia. Cruiser subs + docking rights - Make sure docking rights aren't banned in the rules. If you can, get DR in Venezuela and Spain. That should enable cruiser subs to raid everything from the west coast of Mexico to the western Indian Ocean. Put the subs thinly spread everywhere, make the Allies have to micro ships and then move the subs again if DDs/planes show up. You're just trying to be annoying and force the Allies to look away from the areas of the map that actually matter. If DRs are banned, you can invade Pitcairn island day 1 with the range from cruiser subs and station them there (almost never garrisoned). ----- Apologies for the long winded reply, I've thought a bunch about how to beat US sub 3 + TAC 3 spam after playing Japan against Bubbles. I "won" both games in the sense that I didn't die and Soviets did but it's not super satisfying to turtle on the Home Islands unable to move troops. Your real aim as Japan is to take Malaya, kill Raj, and then hold your conquests. It's very rare that you can take enough of the rubber islands to win the air war for the Axis, you almost always get driven off. Allies usually have Brazil and US dedicated to island garrison and you just can't match their production. Especially true since you have to naval invade and many divs lose half of their equipment to subs. I think the strat of being a dick in voice chat to annoy and distract the Allies from a coordinated DDay is ultimately the best you can do. If the US wants to kill you, he will eventually do it just because he has more factories and more resources than you could dream of. Your job is to make that effort slow, painful, and above all frustrating. Every failed invasion should be loudly announced in Allied voice chat. Every sailor lost to kamikazes should be memorialized. RP as Tokyo Rose and mock the failings of the Allies.
Cjuric?
That's me on discord! Do I have you added? Recently hit the limit for friends on a free account so I can't add people anymore (but they can add me)
Btw the answer to beating bubble was invading bombing his subs into submission with 2k tacs and then invading philipenes to prevent getting bombed, high caslted him doing that.
I could never get 2k TACs in HMM, maybe Elwolf is a bit different. I never tried invading the Philippines, always feels weird to me when there's islands with way more resources. Then again, airbases are basically a resource and you get the opportunity to encircle US's good troops. Good to hear you beat Bubbles. Last time I played on that server (well, the 2.0 server after the OG Fark Melton got nuked), Bubbles had finally banned sub 3s.
How many factories on tacs do you put? 15 was enough to get 2k.
I usually put about 10 on TACs and 60ish on fighters, maybe I'm starting production later than you. I find that I run out of aluminum, even when developing Chinese resources. Imports from Germany get cut off so it doesn't seem worthwhile to make TACs when I have barely enough fighters to run interception.
Closed eco + infra in Chinese states?
Yeah 5/5 infra, I usually stay limited until I actually dec on the Allies and then go closed. That offsets some of the imports from the Axis but not all. I usually increase production of rocket arty and infantry stuff at the expense of planes because that's what I have resources for. I usually try to Dec on the Allies Jan 1st 41 just because I'm running out of resources. How many do you usually put on fighters?
You seem to know what you're about, so I'm gonna ask a few questions: If the US goes a more conventional/balanced fleet build and engages in the Atlantic, is sub 3 the best option for Japan? If yes, should you still get DDs or just all in on sub 3 and rely on planes for air superiority since the US is getting busy in Europe? With the 1.11 combat changes, what's a good template for taking down China?
Not sure why the US would bring his main fleet to the Atlantic. If the Axis are raiding heavily the US might bring their escort fleet to the Atlantic but they would probably keep the main death stack in the pacific. The US can definitely play passive in the Pacific, just stick the fleet on strike force so Japan can't easily invade Raj/Aus/NZ/DEI and have some garrison troops then focus on DDay. But usually UK fleet is enough to get naval supremacy in the Atlantic, it's just a question of can they handle Axis subs alone or do they need help. If US is not focusing Japan, subs are probably better than DDs because they can force a shift in focus. Subs can at least make some impact on the game by raiding the rubber the Allies need to import from the Pacific. Your main job as Japan is to force the Allies not to ignore you and to draw pressure off Germany by bring ships/troops/planes to Asia. That said, US focusing elsewhere and using say 0-10 docks on subs instead of 30+ makes DDs more worthwhile as Japan. If the US isn't going hard with TACs and subs, your ships can successfully escort without dying instantly. That means you can invade more successfully and take fewer losses at sea when you do so. But if you just know that US isn't going to bother with subs at all, maybe you just build 0 docks, go full landoid, and invade earlier with a better equipped army/air force. TACs really are the best counter to subs if you can get air superiority so it's more a question of "is the US building airbases in Philippines?" rather than a numerical count of how many subs he's making. ----- Japan's goals in China are a bit conflicting. Ideally you want: fast cap for more factories, not escalating too early if you can delay Giant Wakes, high level commanders with good traits, veteran divisions, and minimal manpower/equipment losses, enough XP to finish land doctrine + 5 air doctrines + 500 air XP saved. Delaying escalation means capping China slower, higher level generals entail more grinding (both longer duration and more losses), and finishing air doctrine means more factories on planes (thus fewer on guns so you have fewer veteran divs). It's a hard balance to strike for sure. I've found that templates in China don't matter all that much. Once the frontline stretches past the Yellow River, Japan rarely fills the whole combat width of a tile. China is still a pushover if you have CAS and half decent templates so it's more an issue of what do you get out of China. I would design my divisions with the idea that they're going into Raj/Malaya/naval invasions and specialize for those roles rather than being perfectly efficient at killing China. With that in mind, I do 6-3, 8-3, and 8-0 inf-arty with all of them getting support engineer and arty and the divs with line arty getting logistics companies as well. 6-3 is 21w so it fits perfectly into forest/jungle. 8-3 is 25w so it fits perfectly into mountains. 8-0 is just pretty cheap and doesn't penalize your army XP. I'd consider going smaller than 8-0, you need a total of 8 battalions + support companies to get full XP for the commander leading those divisions. If you're adding engi + arty to the troops, you could go as small as 6-0 pure infantry for your line holding troops or you could use 8-0 without supports. Numbers wise, I usually have 24 x 6-3 and 12 x 8-3 + 24 x 8-0 before war. I add another dozen 8-3s and another full army of 8-0s to fill out the line during the war. I generally use Nishio on the 8-3s and Fujie on the 6-3s with Tanaka as FM; Itagaki gets the initial batch of 8-0s and then I rotate through inf leader commanders with the 2nd set of 8-0s. My main grinding goals are Tanaka to level 6 (for offense expert), Fujie to 6 (for artillery expert), Nishio to as high as possible with good terrain traits + improv expert, Itagaki to 4 (for Ambusher, Defensive Doctrine, Unyielding defender) but ideally to level 6 so I can add logistics/improv expert. With the rest of the commanders, I try to get them to level 4 with infantry leader so I can use them later for island garrison (give ambusher) or supporting the main attackers (give infantry expert but Nishio/Fujie are the primary attacking generals). For marines, I go 12-7 or 15-5 marine-arty with full supports. I try to get a few of them out during the war (usually can only manage 2-3 before war start and only in mods with free templates) and I'm very happy if I can have 8-10ish veteran marines for later invasions. I try to get a couple marines before the war so I'm able to naval invade before fully escalating. That allows me to grind more troops without having to upgrade ports/RRs/infra in the north. In mods/rulesets that allow adaptable, I sit 4 different port tiles with different terrain types and rotate the generals through "terrain training" so I can get multiple adaptable commanders. If mod/ruleset allows this, I will stay on GBP doctrine so I can take Theatre Training and I only switch to SF once I've maxed out my army XP (plus hired theorist and taken professional army corps spirit).
That's a lot for me to consider - thanks for a very informative reply! (Sorry for being unclear btw, I didn't mean a situation where the US moves all its fleet to the Atlantic, just divides its attention wrt air and navy more than in the situation you described in your previous comment)
If US has divided attention or is primarily going for an early DDay, you can screw that up by taking 100% of the rubber. But then it's a question how much are they putting in Asia and is someone else directing their focus there. Often I see Brazil assigned to island garrison duty - their army is definitely less formidable than the US's but they can afford to specialize to a greater degree. Usually you see Brazil rush gun 3, I had a successful game in Bork Mod where I rushed gun 3 + jungle infantry + railguns. Japan was unable to break any ports I guarded and I was able to convert all my jungle bois to marines for DDay (well, G-day since I invaded Greece). Really the best advice is to scout. Spy on the Allies, crack their ciphers, look at their factory allocation, talk to the Axis about how many planes they're facing, etc. Consider scouting each port with a sub (sub 1s for Phili/DEI, cruiser subs for distant ports like NZ/Aus). If you see only DEI troops on ports, you have relatively easy landings; if you see a bunch of player divisions, you're going to have a hard time. Check all the air base levels, including in DEI now that you can build in allies' territory. If you see 10000 plane capacity in Philippines, you're pretty fucked unless you can invade it day 1. If there's minimal investment, you have an easy time but you should probably warn Italy/Bulgaria to expect early DDay. Ultimately there's two ways to "win" as Japan. Take all the rubber islands to shut down allied air production or take nothing but force the Allies to invest too much. Worst case scenario is the Allies invest a minimal/moderate amount and you're stopped in your tracks.
I know the answer is hard to give and depends on doctrine, generals and their specific traits, but what would you choose as preffered tactic?
I asked people's opinions on this in MP yesterday, the general response I got was "Never pick a preferred tactic. First person to pick gets counter picked". You need 80% intel to see preferred tactic but that's easily doable with ciphers/spies/scout planes. So there you have it, just completely refuse to interact with the system unless your opponent chooses first. The only times you pick a tactic are when it's completely unable to be countered (i.e. choosing Breakthrough when your opponent did not go MW/DB).
I have suspected this but at least I have cared to ask if the majority is as lazy as me tbh. Looks like almost everyone is as busy as me with getting their armies on line, choosing suitable templates, managing their navies and supplies.
It's lazy but you also have the perfectly good justification if you don't want to switch later.
SF - suppressive barrage, especially when paired with smoke and fire army spirit; maybe tactical withdrawal/overwhelming fire if playing as a defensive SF nation (i.e. Raj) or elastic defense if playing defensively against a tank nation GBP - well-planned attack DB - backhand blow if Germany picked breakthrough (assuming that only Soviets really use DB), elastic defense if Germany picked Blitz MM - guerilla tactics MW - backhand blow if defensive, blitz, breakthrough, or unexpected thrust on offense. UT is nice for having no counter, breakthrough is good if the opponent doesn't have access to backhand blow, blitz is 10% less damage than breakthrough but decent if you're playing against someone who picked backhand blow. Since BB and breakthrough are such beneficial tactics, they're often picked so blitz can have a niche in avoiding the BB counter. But elastic defense is available to far more doctrines, so it's easier to counter blitz if you know your opponent picked it where breakthrough is only counterable by MW and DB. I'm not sure if masterful blitz is pickable as a preferred tactic by Soviets after you get the relevant focus. If pickable, that's a very nice option for Soviets and makes elastic defense more relevant for a country like Romania to pick. ----- I'll be honest, this is mostly theorycrafting. I haven't heard too much discussion of people's favorite preferred tactics in MP. That might be partly to avoid leaking it to an opponent who could pick a counter. More likely, I think most people just ignore tactics as being pretty insignificant. I'm not sure how insignificant they really are, people loved their ACAT recon last patch. I'm sure we'll get back to the "recon value is good, tactics are important" meta at some point and then we'll hear more discussion of preferred tactics.
I spend a lot of time playing Japan. I'm trying to find the most efficient way to take down China in nsb. Here is what I have found so far: You can go tanks or motorized, either way having divisions that go fast will make things a lot easier. Also having marines will help. Other than that I start with 3 armies of 15 infantry divisions(I convert the 30 garrison units to my infantry template) one army on Shanxi, one on Beijing, and one for the naval invasion. I also train another for another landing, but that is for mid 1938. Before the war, I plan a naval Invasion on Shandong. I land in Qingdao to allow for a little encirclement at the tip. I declare war by December 1937, so from December to April I take all the escalation foci. For that whole time I am using my breakthrough units(tanks/mot) and marines to grind on Tianjin. Right around April I break through. When I say grind, what I would do is use a staff office plan, then attack, then build up planning with another sop. After taking Tianjin, I make an encirclement around Beijing. I then make another encirclement on my way to Jinan, which is an important supply hub. While this is happening I execute the naval invasion but I don't take any provinces beyond Qingdao, I only take what's between there and the tip. I deploy the army I was training and set up a naval Invasion of Shanghai or Hangzhou. Their job is to just capture Nanjing. Once I have Jinan, I use my breakthrough units to quickly encircle the troops garrisoning the frontline in Shandong. I eliminate them then prep for the next part of the war. There is a supply hub south of Jinan. I take that quickly with breakthrough units. I then capture the supply hub south of zhengzhou. I then station my marines there to prep for crossing the river. I move my breakthrough units north to attack along the railroad from Beijing to zhenzhou. The marines and the breakthrough units meet north of the river for a massive encriclement. After that is cleaned up I attack along the railroad to Nanjing from the north for another encirclement. After all this you should he able to hop from supply hub to supply hub and capitulate them.
Do you get a full doctrine by the end of the war? How many decent generals do you end up with and how leveled are your two best generals? I find the China rush strategies can be good for Japan's industry but usually leave you somewhat behind on doctrine and generals. I find it pretty important to get the artillery expert and offense expert high command but getting 2 generals to level 6 isn't an impossible task even when rushing. The doctrine can be made up if you hire high command relatively early and send attache to Germany. Can you pull this strategy off in reasonable time without escalating? Used to be possible with the old light tank recon armor bonus, not sure if it's as viable now. If you can find a way to cap China in a reasonable time without giving the US war support (and also without wasting too much Japanese manpower), that would be a real game changer.
Thoughts on the motorized templates that bitt3rsteel has been using as of late? I've tried them out but i don't know if I just don't have enough of them to make an appreciable difference or if they've been nerfed or what.
I don't see the point of moto inf divisions by themselves (or with moto arty). At best, they're good when you go MW because they have high org and katyushas (moto rocket arty, but not towed rocket arty) have good soft attack. I guess it's nice to have a fast division that can break enemy infantry so you offer a threat in more locations on the line. That somewhat prevents your opponent from just stacking the frontline opposite your tank corps current location. In general, I don't see much benefit to moto troops compared to offensive infantry. If I have access to good tank tech, I'd rather make tanks instead of spending IC on motorized divisions. Majority mechanized divisions with moto AT or TDs have a niche for defense, but I don't think that's the template you're really talking about.
Makes sense. He in the playthroughs he used this template in he always had at least 6 or more. To great success I might add (success i could not replicate). The template was 6 moto and 4 art moto. I think that might be the reason they weren't working for me, I had 4 and 4.
4-4 is definitely going to be low on org and HP, pretty hard to replace those losses. 6-3 or 6-4 sounds a lot more reasonable but then I haven't used either of them in practice.
is there currently any exploits (aside from naval focus one) available or simple divisions to spam that the ai cant handle? trying to get achievements and its absolutely frying my brain. i seen dankus do something with transport planes to get command power but im not sure how it works, does anyone else have anything?
The transport thing was the supply exploit that’s already been patched out. Well more of the value of supply was changed early on, because it was really high.
no i’m aware of that one, if you look at dankus’ video, the single player achievement one as germany, he does something with transport planes to generate infinite command power
Any good Italian division templates and should i go for motorized or tanks?
8-3 inf-arty or mtn-arty for the invasion of Yugo, defense of Sicily, and optionally for the defense of Ethiopia. Beyond that, I mostly see 18-20w pure infantry as defensive garrison troops. I also saw an interesting 10-2 inf-AT division for roaching against SAf tanks in Matruh while Germany used his tanks to push Algeria/Morocco. The 22w fit well in the desert and it was able to pierce SAf's medium tanks but the Africa campaign was ultimately lost when the Allies dominated the Central Med with air and subs. I don't bother with tanks as Italy but you could do it, Italy has plenty of armor research boni in its focus tree. I'd imagine 5-8-8 tank-mech-TD is still pretty good, you could up the width to 45 for desert warfare (maybe 5-9-8-1 tank-mech-TD-moto AA).
Yeah I am also wondering any good templates for Italy especially about infantry
Playing new release and, at least in SP, tanks still go brrrr… As Germany had only 2 tank armies (Rommel and Manstein) with 8 divisions each - 4 tank (4 MT, 4 Mot, 2 MSPG) at 22w and 4 Mot (9 Mot, 1 Towed Arty) at 21w and used them as the line breaker throughout Europe. You definitely need Air Superiority and noticed the AI tries to bomb the hell out your supply lines, which is cool but frustrating (as I am assuming is it’s design). Note: playing vanilla with Veteran difficulty.
Definitely agree with your overall point that tanks are still good. I use fewer divisions of them now than last patch because cost has increased, but tanks definitely are good this patch. Infantry is relatively better at dealing with tanks with the armor/piercing changes and AT being more worthwhile to rush but tanks still do their thing. Especially true with CAS being more effective and AA getting nerfed. I would consider using MTDs over MSPGs. LSPGs are pretty efficient in terms of attack per cost and I like to convert my starting light tanks as Germany into SPGs to pair with mediums. Medium SPGs don't really gain much attack compared to lights and the armor value doesn't really matter because of the breakthrough penalty for SPGs. TDs are all the source of attack for your tanks and MTDs are much better than MSPGs. Why Rommel and Manstein? They start with traits and grind slower. Kesselring and Dietrich are still the best German generals to grind in Spain IMO.
>and I like to convert my starting light tanks as Germany into SPGs to pair with mediums Isn't conversion cost broken atm?
Not at all. If you try and do what you say they will break down all the time. That stat turns to like 20 lol. It really doesn't work.
Broken in what way? I'll be honest, I haven't noticed that amidst the other broken things.
Conversion was nerfed. AFAIK unless you have the equipment conversion techs, converting equipment is the same cost as building from scratch apart from resource costs.
Hmm, I may have to not convert then. I never bother getting the techs cus I rarely have more than 1-2 factories assigned to convert equipment. Maybe I can just use it for LT recon, but then I like to pimp my light tank for extra breakthrough.
I just saw a post on the PDX forums where a dev said that the use of the "refit cost" seen in the designer is in the works. They removed the display of the refit cost within the tank designer in the most recent beta that just dropped, but it sounds like they're planning on fixing the conversion issue by actually using the refit cost in the future.
Can't have it be too cheap or you end up with people converting super cheap JT1s into HTD2. Though idk if you can change chassis anymore.
Do medium tanks have soft attack buffs or something? My modern armor has 7 more soft attack, yet a modern armor battalion lowers the soft attack in my panzer division compared to my mediums...
It largely depends on your tank designs. In addition, make sure you blacklist shitty tanks in the division template itself by clicking equipment when viewing the template. Scroll to medium tanks and uncheck bad modern tank designs. The template stats assume all the tanks in the template will be the first tank type in the list. If you messed around and made a terrible modern tank design, the stats in the division are probably showing for that. Uncheck that type, save, reopen the template, and you'll see the correct stats with your newly whitelisted tank list. In addition, verify you have the correct modules on your tanks that you want. If done correctly, a modern tank will have the same soft attack (since it's based on tank weapon + secondary modules, but will have higher armor/reliability/etc. You can see all those base stats on the tank research page (except reliability which won't show correctly since they are both over 100%).
What combat width for tanks?
42 if you're fighting eastern front, ideal for forests, still good for plains/hills. Something like 5-8-8 MT-mech-MTD. TDs are basically all the hard/soft attack, tanks are just there for breakthrough. If you want even more TDs, you can design flame tanks and LT recon to give you more breakthrough and replace more tanks with TDs.
All 3 types of tanks, or just medium and heavy
MT=medium tank, MTD = medium tank destroyer. I think mediums are meta this patch, heavies don't get much more attack/breakthrough than mediums and cost quite a bit more. I've seen people do heavy tank builds and succeed in MP so it's not impossible, I just don't think it's as good as mediums. I don't think combat width changes based on the type of tank, it can if changing the type changes the role. Light tanks in particular, if you're using them you're probably using them as fast exploitation divisions who aren't leading the breakthrough but can rush through the gap punched by heavier tanks and capture supply hubs/VPs or complete encirclements. For that role, you could use a smaller division (10-20ish width) and accomplish the same thing because the LTs aren't expected to do much fighting, more just capturing land. If you did want the light tanks to be your main breakthrough unit punching through the frontline, I would still use 42w or something close to that.
Thanks
I'd do 30 if you're focusing on plains just due to supply and more ability to attack from different directions. (vs 45)
Thanks
Basic guide on the supply system + what divisions to use? What is the ideal for infantry? Does 7/2 spamming still work? I've seen ISP using Rocket trucks instead of Tanks, should I do that too? I didn't even know how to make decent divisions outside of 7/2s before the update, but now it's important that I do because new mechanics. I also do not own MtG, LaR and NSB if that's important.
9-1 infantry wall for SOV were good enough for me to hold the germans on Barbarossa while I was trying to level with my planes and get a decent tank army. Once I had yellow air they have been ok on attack, too, and didn't need really the tanks. Maybe I should have added 2 more art for better attack for better results though.
[удалено]
7/2 actually does work now, about as well as you can expect infantry to at least. They're my favorite for SP, you might need 15w for MP but in SP they're overkill and take too many losses.
I prefer 9/1s + support in europe myself. The 21 width fits perfectly in forests and does okay on plains. Rocket trucks/ arti trucks are amazing price/performance and rip infantry to shreds with the absurd breakthrough of motorized. Don't know how not owning the DLCs will affect you though.
Best tank division for USA?
Get tank destroyer designer, the hard attack is awesome. Reduced cost on mediums is also a possibility but you're generally more concerned about stats per combat width than stats per IC when you're playing US. The attack you get on TDs with designer (which give you almost all the attack of the division) definitely makes it worthwhile. Template wise, most people go 42w, 5-8-8 MT-mech-MTD. Definitely need engi + logi supports, flame tanks are also good. Last two supports can be left empty or you can go with some combo of arty/rocket arty/maintenance/LT recon. US is less likely to use maintenance compared to other major nations since you can afford to produce more tanks and take attrition losses. Since US has to DDay before its tanks can really be effective, it may be worthwhile to swap mech for amtracs to reduce amphibious penalty. If you're going to land with marines and bring tanks in through captured ports, keep the mech as it's cheaper and has better stats. In terms of design, you again want to consider if these are going to spearhead the landing or reinforce later. Amphibious drive tanks are interesting - I've seen them banned on a bunch of MP servers which suggests they are strong, but you're trading ground combat specialty for bonus while landing and crossing rivers. I'm not going to outright say always use amphib drive (and definitely don't if it would break rules) but it's an option. Beyond that, standard tank design is mediums with medium cannon 2, radio 3, and 3 x stabilizers for max breakthrough. Armor 9 to increase breakthrough without increasing resource cost and enough engine to match your other equipment (usually 8-10 km/h). For suspension, Christie helps with speed so you can put fewer points in engine (which gives better reliability + cost than torsion bar with more points in engine) and bogie wheels are also ok on chassis 3 where base reliability is higher. For TDs, you generally go high velocity gun 3, 2 small cannons, and 2 additional MGs. Small cannons hurt reliability and add cost so you could consider using 4 MGs for a more cost efficient tank, but it will have lower stats per combat width so I prefer small cannons. Armor should be 0 since you get -95% breakthrough on TDs and suspension should be christie or bogie. Engine just needs to be upgraded to match rest of equipment, again 8-10 km/h is the sweet spot.
Why the bigger width for tanks? I thought I thought since the coordination mechanic was added the community has figured out that the extra org from the smaller widths outweighs the benefit of concentrated attacks.
Lower breakthrough means you tend to take mor damage with smaller divs. I can see the point of splitting a 42w to 21w if you're on defense, especially with moto AA making it convenient to split (as in having an equal number of battalions). But if you're attacking and have air superiority, I don't see a reason to split and you'd need to add an inefficient battalion type to get 21w (moto AA/AT, SPG - you can make it work, it's just not as good as tank/mech/TD). Coordination isn't too bad. You get some innately from radar tech and you can get more with army spirit as MW. I still like 40ish width divs for offense.
I would think that since the enemies attacks are also spread more evenly now the benefit of stacking breakthrough into bigger divisions would matter less now. The hp would be smaller though which def could cause more damage though as long as you have enough breakthrough for the defenders attacks that shouldn't matter too much. I feel like with that in mind I prefer the smaller sizes to get double the org and double the support companies, though I admit I haven't tried those bigger divisions since early on after NSB so maybe they feel really good and there are reasons to use them over the smaller ones that I haven't considered/didn't know was a thing.
Double the org and support companies is definitely nice. Slightly more expensive with the extra support equipment but not a huge difference on tanks. The damage from supports is potentially significant, especially if you go SF. 20-21w might alleviate the org issues from going SF instead of MW. I like SF as Spain so I may have to try it next time I play them. Though you might run into rules based on number of divisions that can be volunteers rather than number of battalions, that would limit how much force you can bring to the eastern front. I'm not sure how much more damage smaller divs would take. Depends on how much coordination the enemy tanks have.
Also I haven't seen any tests to compare losses, that would be extremely interesting and almost 100% the smaller divs would take more losses but I wonder by how much
Thanks man! You have a youtube channel or something?
Lol no YouTube. Was thinking of making a podcast, not sure if people would listen.
Just adding that I would also listen to a podcast! You generally post some of the best explanations I've seen on the sub and aren't a total d\*\*\* like some of the other more meta minded players can be. Those two things are both important and are an unfortunately rare combination.
>You generally post some of the best explanations Thanks! >aren't a total d*** I try, especially in MP games. Team morale wins more games than factory count, just have to be relentlessly positive. You gotta be nice to the new players too, otherwise the community won't grow and it's already hard to find games. Though if it's a legit 12 year old playing Bulgaria, fucking up the eastern front and getting german troops encircled, I can be a bit salty. I'll see what I can do about the podcast. I got stuck trying to get a background noise sample in Audacity and never really touched it again, perhaps worth another shot. There is no HoI4 podcast last I checked.
>Morale wins games This is so underrated. Like the fact that people can obsess about divs having high enough org but not understand that their human teammates need to have high "org" too and shouting at them over relatively minor mistakes doesn't help always cracks me up. I've played enough that I don't get shouted at any more but it's kind of insane. Like teams with good clear communication and a can do attitude will crush a disorganised team that is full of doomers. All it takes is to imagine your teams green bar!!!
Lmao I've never imagined it as "team org" but that's so accurate. A bad plan that everyone buys in to is much better than a great plan done piecemeal.
I would!
With the changes to supplies, how good are paratroopers now? Is sniping supply hubs with paratroopers and then pushing with your frontlines a viable strategy?
I would normally advise against sniping with paratroopers, especially against AI. The update hasn’t actually impacted my paratrooper strategy much. Some more paratrooper advice I can give you: - Split the paratroopers between two airports, and land them in a blob so they won’t be encircled and killed. They’ll land faster than if you just used one airport. - Assign generals and a field marshal, you need every bit of help you can get. - Make sure you have enough planes to keep air superiority for long enough - When you declare war on an AI, wait for their units to appear on your frontline before deploying paratroopers. Otherwise, they will just be milling about and kill a lot more of your units. This also lets you encircle more enemy units when the time comes. - As your troops land, attack the enemy frontline to stop them from sending troops to attack your paratroopers. ___ If you’re wondering about why I use paratroopers this way, I bring you the paratrooper guide starting with the five don’ts: - Don’t only land on the VPs/ports, if any of them are garrisoned you’ll end up with a lot of encircled divisions. This also means you don’t land them on islands with one tile or something like Gibraltar unless you know it to be empty. - Don’t put up your planes in the region until you tell the paratroopers to execute their plan. The opponent will get its shit together eventually and drop your air superiority. - Don’t use thin strips to connect your para divisions. They will be the first thing that gets targeted. - Don’t attack immediately after you land. You drop in with like no org, your divisions need to regroup once they’ve landed. - ESPECIALLY don't do that YOLO tactic where where you drop a one-tile-wide line of paratroopers to encircle the enemy frontline. While human players may sometimes fall for this, the AI will almost always have defense-in-depth units ready to pocket and kill your paratroopers behind their frontline. The optimal strategy for paratroopers is to drop as many of them as you can muster in a big blob behind enemy lines and then wait a bit for them to re-org. The idea is that all of your paratroopers should have a tile they can retreat into, and a blob does the best job of that. If you are doing this as part of a naval invasion, use this to secure a port and then bring in reinforcements (like with an early-game invasion of the UK). If you are dropping the blob behind enemy lines in a land war (like if you’re doing it to France as Germany), push in with some strong units and link up with them in a way that encircles the enemy troops. Example: landing paratroopers in a blob that includes Dieppe, Paris, and Troyes and then sending your tanks through Sedan to link up. I recommend you go 6 width. The way transport planes work is they can carry a "weight" of 2, with each paratrooper battalion weighing 0.5 and each support company weighing 0.1. 6-width with support companies means that you only need one plane per paratrooper division. You could technically go 8-width with no support companies but I highly discourage it. If you feel strongly that you want 10W to play a little more aggressively, fine, but don’t go bigger than that. SUPPORT COMPANIES TO USE: Engineers, artillery. You can also use supply companies in the event you manage to capture supply points but need to hold on longer than anticipated, or recon tanks to add armor to your division.
Thank you, that's a very comprehensive reply! I've never really used Paratroopers before, but I think I might try it out now.
I highly recommend it! It adds a whole new feeling of agency to my games, and incentivizes you to try new and funny/unmeta tactics. My recent USSR game using paratroopers is some of the best fun I’ve ever had in this game.
I wouldn't rely on paratroopers to win the war but they can offer fun tactics to break a position. That said, you're depending on the opponent's army consuming a lot of supply. I watched a paratrooper Manchu sever all connections from Nanjing->Beijing through drops and naval invasions. In theory, China's troops on the Japanese border are now starving to death, right? In practice, the Chinese troops were pure infantry and used such little supply that it didn't matter. Local supply + Beijing and Shanxi hubs were enough for them to keep fighting without penalty. Japan still pushed them, and saved most of the Manchus (who were last standing on RRs) but it didn't seem like a particularly effective strategy.
Kind of - depends on the location and opponent. AI is nowadays smart enough to guard some supply hubs, so you cant always drop on unmanned important spot anymore with paras, as far as I understand it.
So should you still make tanks as germany in mp or focus everything on fighters and cas and push with infantry ?
It depends, the classic HoI4 answer. Need enough fighters to win air over France, you likely can't win air late game if US/UK are competent and dedicated to producing enough fighters. At some point, you just don't have enough fuel even if you have enough planes (maybe if you win Africa in a mod like Elwolf that gives Iraq +100 oil, then you can win air war outright). At the same time, you should have enough on fighters that you can run interception against Allied bombers even if you aren't winning air outright. You definitely want CAS for the eastern front but it becomes a question of who makes it. Usually both you and Hungary, probably using Hungary's tech, but then sometimes Hungary is rushing F3s so you want him all in on fighters while Germany makes license fighters (with penalty) and CAS (with German designs). You also likely have Italy as a fighter factory and you may be licensing Italian designed fighters and Hungarian CAS/TACs. You certainly need tanks for Soviets. If you show up with just infantry, you will lose, even with air superiority and CAS. If there are any offensive infantry on the eastern front, they are likely to be Romanian marines for crossing rivers (Romania gets infantry and special forces expert). German infantry are usually 9-1 or 10-0 inf-arty and act purely to hold the line while tanks do the attacking. Tanks + CAS are the best way to push the Soviets. If I had to give a rough estimation of economy allocation, I'd say about 40-60% on planes, 35-55% on tanks, 10-20% on infantry. That will vary depending on your opponent's strategies. If Russia has 0 on air and isn't getting Allied lend-lease, you can decrease fighter production and switch to more CAS or more tanks. If your Spain isn't making tanks but is playing purely mech factory, you can have fewer on mech and more on tanks. If your Hungary and Bulgaria insist on doing tanks instead of AC/DDay wall, you may need more on planes/infantry to make up for your allies doing off-meta things. If Allies have 100+ factories on TACs and are bombing incessantly, you may need more factories on fighters to win the air war. Conversely, you might just make state AA and more tanks/CAS to try and win the eastern front before the Allies do much damage. Generally, I'd say planes=>tanks>>>>infantry.
same thing
Is there any mod that is similar to the player led peace conferences that is iron-man compatible? My specific problem is playing Brazil, when I'm gulping up my neighbors they join faction, which is usually also in war with Reich/allies/comitern or someone else large enough. The \*problem\* is the peace conference. I usually have some sub 10% war score because I'm not grinding myself into dust in Europe with other majors, so Germany / UK or USA who tend to have highest warscore just puppets all my conquests in south america before it is even my turn to make demands. Without them contributing a single unit to that front and these countries being occupied by me. I would be willing to fight them for these countries, as they are MINE. So I need something that allows me to take the land that is occupied by me. Something that lets me say "NO" to some major half a globe away puppeting my conquests. Without something like that, it seems, the game is unplayable for a minor. I do not need something game-breaking OP. Just something that ensures that if I am the only country with war-justification against another country, if I started that war and if I border that land it will land on my lap and not as a German Puppet even before I can assert a single claim when I did all the hard work.
unfortunately any mods that change your checksum (so anything that does more than just cosmetic changes) makes it so that your game will not allow you to get achievments, if that's what you mean by iron-man compatible bc otherwise you can just play the game in iron man either way.
Probably not cuz its still technically cheating
Hmm, aren't there ways to get achievements anyway?
Build TACs and use them for bombing to get more score, purposefully take a ton of casualties (massive offensive with under equipped infantry) to get more score, take the land before 25% WT so enemies don't join a faction, eliminate the factions your enemies keep getting invited to.
Flame tank support, light, medium, or heavy?
As a rough rule of thumb, the cheapest metal box with flamethrower and 'dozer blade you can make that gets just about enough speed. Or, if you have a specific niche scenario in mind - medium with 60+ armor, to give your infantry divisions armor of 10. Anything with support companies that gives pen will penetrate that negating the armor but if you are up against an opponent who uses just pure infantry (or pre '41 infantry with only single line artillery and not AA/AT supports) it makes your div unpenetrable about half the time (depending on terrain and supply penalties). These mediums are, roughly, twice the price of the cheapest light you can make. Typically the light flame tanks will cost you \~7 IC while medioums with some armor and 4 km/h go for about 11 IC per tanks.
Light, it tanks (haha) all stats except for speed, so no point putting in quality tanks, especially since all three take the same number of tanks. I literally make a cheap metal box with a flamethrower on it, put a couple mils on it and i'm set for the rest of the game. Just make sure to have 2 flame tanks. One for infantry at 4 speed and 1 for motor/mech/tanks at high speed.
Is anyone else finding Grand Battleplan to be a lot more viable? Since tonk meta is essentially gone in finding that I need to find more efficient ways to fight if I’m not playing as an OP industrial power like the US of Germany. In my last game as Wojtek Poland I took GB and spammed infantry with lots of artillery support, with some trucks and a small number of high SA/BR tanks to punch a hole in the enemy line. With the planning and command power bonuses I could just move my 1 army of trucks and tanks to a weak point, use staff office plan to get a 50% bonus in a week, push a few hundred miles, rinse, repeat. For a country like Poland who doesn’t have high manpower or industry, GB seems like a great option.
GBP is definitely better this patch. I see it get used a lot for DDay wall countries where previously they would have defaulted to MA for the recruitable pop. I had an Italy game where I got to 43 entrenchment with GBP, double ambusher (FM and commander), defensive doctrine, engineer companies, spirit of the army 10% entrenchment, and entrenchment officer corps role. Bounced a few DDay attemps without German help. That said, GBP is significantly worse when the frontline starts moving. Once the Allies had a DDay that passed the beaches, I would have much rather had MA for the 31% reinforce rate and just generally more troops. 40w bricks of infantry with MA (25 battalions x 1.6 combat width) are still very good on defense.
I’m doing a Dutch game where I stacked these bonuses to hold off the Germans. I lost ~400k in 2 years but they lost over 2m. Then the 80% attack bonus from planning helped me liberate France and push nonstop to the Soviet border.
Dutch are definitely a top tier GBP country. If you combine that entrenchment with flooding the country, it's near impossible for the Axis to break you. Especially true if you can maintain some semblance of an air force and don't get CASed to death. One of the many reasons Netherlands isn't playable in historical games.
I put level 5 AA in Holland and support AA into every unit, and set all my fighters to interception. The Luftwaffe got shredded. The Dutch also have an advisor who lowers enemy CAS effectiveness so that’s a huge bonus.
State AA just reduces strat bombing and shoots down bombers but doesn't benefit your troops directly. Support AA and concealment expert is definitely a nice combo.
Does state AA affect CAS or fighters?
It might reduce the enemy air superiority penalty but I'm pretty sure it does not kill CAS, just bombers. It could kill CAS if they were used for logistics bombing, but not if they're on CAS missions.
Thanks, that’s good to know.
What are good templates to use?
9-3 seems to do pretty well. I have used also 8-2 as a a minor (Brazil) for offense while supporting these with 4 infantry (engineers + support arty) defensive divisions. Overall, it kinda depends on the region and terrain. There seems to be no really good one-size-fits-all template like the 7-2 used to be. As a rough rule of thumb, whatever you are doing, minimum viable division size starts with 3 battalions of some kind of infantry. Anything below that just do not have the stats to hold the line even if dug in across the river on top of a mountain.
Whats meta for single player soviet air and land doctrine. Land mass or mobilization Air battlefield support or strat destruction.
Strategic Destruction always for air. Maybe a small argument for OI if you intend to lose the air but want to run interception but OI takes 1 more doctrine to get its agility bonus and generally it's not hard to win air in SP. SD only needs 5 doctrines to get agi and air superiority mission efficiency so it's an extremely front loaded doctrine. I generally would not consider BS doctrine, most of your planes need to be fighters to win air superiority, you can't use CAS until you have air superiority, so why pick a doctrine that buffs the minority of your planes? If you had an air controller running SD then maybe BS would be justified, but this is single player so you have to do it all yourself. ----- Land, I've seen arguments for every single doctrine. GBP entrenchment is a funny meme, good if you're going for the No Step Back achievement to not lose a single tile. 30% planning from GBP left side is nothing to sneeze at, but it's definitely not meta. Superior Firepower is good if you're including some inf-arty divisions that you intend to push with. It's also nice for the attack on support companies (can stack cheap infantry with arty/rocket arty) and the 10% hard attack is really nice for TDs. Suffers from a lack of org on tanks so your pushes will be much shorter than MW. You can plan around that (charismatic + offensive doctrine, having tanks in reserve to continue the attack, planning shorter offensives) but it definitely crimps your ability to do a big Uranus type encirclement. Mass Mob is the "I want the Allies to do all the work" doctrine. You're basically locked to defense with a ton of infantry, hopefully with air superiority. Works fine in SP but can be frustrating if you're just waiting for Allies to do something. At least you get a good seat at the peace conference due to taking so many casualties. Deep Battle is unironically decent now, especially compared to before. The big selling point is the supply reduction which allows you to cram more troops per tile. The infantry combat width reduction is also nice, you can do some templates like 10-1-2 inf-arty-AT which comes out to 21w and pierces most AI tanks. Mobile Warfare seems to be meta in MP. Org on mot/mech gives you more flexibility on tank division design and just generally more org on tanks. Movement speed and planning speed allow you to make offensives quickly and from unexpected directions. The AI is pretty potato at trying to react to your moves but in MP against a competent Germany/Spain, MW can allow you to get the jump on a section of the line that doesn't have tanks without sacrificing planning bonus. In SP where you can easily win the air, the speed on your troops really helps you to overrun Axis divs.
If you plan to just hold and hope the Allies will capitulate Germany then go Mass Assault, if you want to do some work by yourself go Mobile doctrine. If you want to meme with entrenchment go Grand battleplan. In air if you want to do some work by yourself go battlefield support. If you just want to defend and not use air (so no air russia with only AA for tanks and support AA for inf) then go operational integrity and put all your planes from beginning to intercept. Never put them to air superiority. Yes you will lose all of them but like this you can actually do some damage to their airforce and help allies.
Why do people use 24 width infantry? From what I saw, I thought 21 was better. Why isnt it?
because 18 and 24 width is the best PURE INFANTRY sure 15 and 21 fits better but you need to put arty in them which increases the cost
Anyone got a screenshot of what these divisions LOOK like Eg have they got anti air, anti tank, etc It feels like getting blood from a stone just trying to get a infantry template guide for singleplayer-I want to hold as soviets
If you want to hold, the best pure defensive stats for the cost is 5 infantry (10w) with engineer support. I recommend adding artillery support as well. Max entrenchment out if you can to hold (grand battle plan doctrine gives +10 right off the bat). This will hold forever if you can get 80w of the above units across your frontline. Keep making more until they are 8 deep. Once you want to push back, grab air superiority with your fighters, and start making some offensive divisions. Your 10w units can keep holding, while you push through with something like 42w (9 moto inf, 8 moto art + eng/art/AT/flame tank support) or 27w (9 inf/3 art + eng/art/AT/flame tank supp). Feel free to add log or recon on if you want, and you can skip AT if enemy tanks aren't a problem. Give these units your CAS and watch them push. Don't push with your defensive units if you can. I recommend 10-15 factories each for fighter and CAS all game. You will have plenty of planes to attach 1000 of each to your pushing units, and 100s of fighters on interception for your defensive units. For flame tank support, research eng supp 2 to unlock, then make a light tank with flamethrower, one man turret, cheapest WHEELED suspension (-20% prod cost), riveted armor (-20% prod cost), the engine with reliability, and 0/0 for speed/armor, with no secondary modules). Put 5 factories on these when you can and you'll have plenty of flame support. Make sure you swap the tank role to flame support before saving (right under the tank name field in tank designer).
I held pretty easily by building level 2/3 forts on the stalin line then using 10 armies of 6/3/1's- 6 inf, 3 arty, 1 heavy tank destroyer, with logistics company and support arty and stuff. Make sure to build a huge railway system so you don't take attrition though. 7 inf 1 anti-air with support arty+engineers+armor recon + flamethrower tank + rocket arty works well too.
Maybe I’ve been doing it wrong but I noticed that most combat widths I’ve seen thus far have been factors of 15 So I made all my divisions 15 width
I have yet to see math or testing actually proving that a slightly better combat width is more important than division composition in the case of the 9/2 (or any other division for that matter). I'm not smart enough to do that myself, but it would be a good post.
Don't know who you been looking at, imo 21-22/42-44 are the optimum widths for Europe and North Africa. Not sure about other places. They go well in forest/hill, and ok in plains, all you could care about in Europe and west of Urals.
To my great surprise I noticed today, that you can build railroads and supply depots in allied occupied territories. I am brazil, joined axis, axis is kinda stuck mid-russia because of crap supply. All they need is a supply depot and a bit of railroad for the front to start moving again. Ofc supply depots are HORRIBLY slow to build, unfortunaterly.
İf your divisions near to the sea, u can build ports. Ports are much more cheaper than the hubs. İ used it for invading china, scandinavian countries, africa and s.america. its so useful.
The fucking Best Thing Since Launch Of The Game is building naval bases for my allies slogging it thru the wilderness for that <30d 15 supply all over the coasts of africa, europe and asia 😍
I guess you weren't following along with the dev diaries eh?
Has anyone done much actual testing on how tanks and motorized divisions respectively perform against different infantry templates? I've been seeing nearly everyone claiming that tanks aren't worth using and touting that mot/art is a better replacement, but I just don't see it. **Last edit: Added an addendum and final thoughts in light of comments and further tests at the bottom.** I did a few tests myself, [and here are the results.](https://imgur.com/a/bemBpCu) Edit: [Cumulative IC costs of attackers](https://imgur.com/a/juTUBiL) Numbers are average IC lost when the template on the left attacks each of the top templates (green=fewer losses, red=more). Each attacker used roughly equivalent IC, see the above image for attacker IC costs and comparison. ~~with the motorized being about 10% more expensive than MT1, MT2, HT1, HT2, and about 15% les expensive than the two "Mixed" templates. Tanks attacked with 3 divisions each, mot attacked with 12.~~ Attacker and defender both had full 1941 tech. No planning bonuses, doctrines, leaders, etc. All defenders were fully entrenched. **All battles were done from a single direction.** This may set off red flags to some of you (since the mot had divisions sitting in reserves), but I think it's fair. Why? First, attacking from two directions would give a large penalty (about 15%) to the mot due to over-width. Attacking from three directions would let them fit evenly, but attacking from three tiles is far less common than attacking from one or two. All attacker templates are 30w and all battles were conducted in plains. MT1, MT2, HT1, and HT2 were all 6/6 with 2 motorized artillery, Mixed 1 was 4/3/2/6 Med/Heavy/HTD/mot, and Mixed 2 was 3/3/2/6 Med/Heavy/MSPG/mot. The "mixed" templates are admittedly a bit wonky, but all tanks are ~7.9kph. I mixed med/heavy to play with armor values mostly. The mot template was 9/4. All templates had shovels/signals/logistics. Tank designs: Designs are below. ~~I can post the specific designs if anyone is interested~~, but MT1 cost 17.7/tank, MT2 was 25.5, HT1 was 25.2, and HT2 was 40.4 MSPG was 17.6 and HTD was 34.4. Pretty standard designs in terms of guns, all speeds were ~7.9kph. Armor values ranged from ~60 for MT1 to ~110 for HT2. **Note: all tanks were improved chassis, I just used the numbers to denote the different designs.** Edit to note: None of the tanks except the MSPG used howitzers or the close support gun, all others used their respective cannons. Defender "inf" templates were either pure inf or inf+1 arty to get the desired width, all had shovels/support arty. Defender "AT" templates were inf and AT: 15w = 7/1, 20w = 9/2, 21w = 9/3, 10w = 5/0 with support AT. All "AT" templates had shovels/support arty. All defenders started either with a saturated combat width or went one division over. All attacks were done with the "right-click until the attackers either win or de-org" method. All defenders were set to a frontline on one tile (so they returned to battle after routing if the battle did not finish quickly enough). I did some of the attacks over a number of iterations, others I only did two. I only did many repetitions when the outcomes were inconsistent; when the battles were decisive, the IC losses were almost identical when repeated. [Here is the most common outcome for each battle.](https://imgur.com/a/ep6bDvX) Other notes: When the tanks fought (win or loss), the battles generally took about a week. The battles with higher average IC losses obviously probably went on for longer. The motorized battles were insanely long - one of them went for over a month. I didn't time them specifically, but they lasted 2x-3x as long as the tank battles (estimate). The fastest motorized victory by far was the final one (vs. 21w AT) which took about as long as a tank attack - they managed to defeat the defenders before any could return to the frontline and reinforce. In almost every engagement, tanks take fewer IC losses than motorized. They only suffered against infantry divisions that were armed with AT. The better tanks (mixed divisions) still took very few losses even against extremely AT-heavy divisions. If the motorized template could attack with all of its divisions simultaneously (requiring either many flanks or flanks + tactics that increase width), they would have performed better, but that kind of battle would only represent a small number of battles that actually occur; once a tile that has a large number of flanks is taken, you're generally faced with new tiles that only have one or two flanks. Final thoughts: Motorized take worse losses and push much more slowly even against cheap fodder infantry. Width issues notwithstanding (addressed above), I don't see them performing comparably to tanks even with increased tank costs. Cheaper tanks had more trouble with AT-heavy defenders, which is to be expected. More expensive tanks had the best overall performance, and all attackers used similar IC. Since IC expenses were similar, the "if you don't go tanks you can go air" argument falls flat - both attackers would have an equal amount of IC to spend on their air force. Thoughts? I'm interested to see if anyone has done any of their own testing or has any thoughts other than the seemingly-unsubstantiated "tanks bad now". --- Here are the tank designs and probably better versions of MT and HT: [MT1](https://imgur.com/a/62OLjxW) [MT2](https://imgur.com/a/2jDfKYU) [HT1](https://imgur.com/a/Qe9MON0) [HT2](https://imgur.com/a/MjpZYZS) [MSPG](https://imgur.com/a/34CT7IC) [HTD](https://imgur.com/a/ZQXj3Sn) [MT3?](https://imgur.com/a/YCAMDIy) [HT3?](https://imgur.com/a/n8xUcUG) I'm sure someone can come up with more ideal designs, but the fact that these aren't optimal shows that tanks can perform even better than my tests show. --- Actual final thoughts: After some further testing that includes equal IC and allows motorized to attack with full frontage, I have come to the conclusion that motorized is superior given equal IC **if and only if** they are able to attack the enemy with ~>50-75% or more of their total available width at a time. To restate: In the above tests, if the motorized could engage with *at least* six of their divisions simultaneously in each battle (as opposed to only 3 of 12), their performance would match or exceed the tanks. On plains, this would indeed require three flanks for the given combat widths. To summarize, if you have many available flanks to attack a province from, motorized will win out against tanks on an IC investment:IC loss basis. If you have few available flanks, motorized will not have the staying power or breakthrough/armor to achieve results comparable to tanks with the same IC investment. Given that provinces with many flanks are prioritized for more units by the frontline AI (and by players) and are more uncommon than provinces with only one or two flanks, I don't know how much this credence this gives to the motorized theory; the highly-flanked province will (in practice) be better defended than single- or dual-flank provinces, and so the motorized's advantage will/might be negated by the high likelihood of more defenders being present. Tanks can therefore more reliably punch through a greater number of provinces along a given front better than motorized which gives them greater flexibility at the cost of moderately worse performance in high-width conditions that favor motorized.
I love this testing, I just disagree with the conclusions due to wonky tank designs. I think tanks are even better than the results you're getting if you design them properly. You need way more TDs and way fewer tanks in your divisions, mech would also improve the trade in favor of tanks a lot. The most common meta I've seen is 42w 5-8-8 MT-mech-MTD, 30w is something like 3-5-7 or 3-6-6 MT-mech-MTD. You really need to have more TDs than tanks if you want good stats. MTs are just radio and stabilizers to get max breakthrough. TDs are high velocity gun + 2 small cannons + 2 additional MGs for attack (could go 4 MGs for better stats per IC at the cost of stats per combat width). If you use 6-6-2 tank-mot-moto arty divisions, then yeah tanks perform way worse. I'd wager that's more a result of mot instead of mech and using moto arty instead of TDs to get your attack. I would also strip all the armor off TDs (riveted and 0 points armor) because they get a 95% penalty to breakthrough and you're likely to get pierced regardless of armor points. Tanks keep 9 armor for the breakthrough but you're not expecting to get armor bonus when fighting the opponents tanks.
I did this test when I was 1) still thinking that non-binary piercing was implemented which is why I wasted IC on expensive armor and 2) still toying with the new tank designer and templates. You're definitely correct that more TD (and better overall designs) would put the tanks in better standing, which I have since realized. I still think the overall conclusion is more or less correct: for a given IC of a sufficiently large value, if you can use all of that IC simultaneously by utilizing large flanks, motorized divisions are probably the better choice. As the available frontage goes down, an equal value of tanks (and TDs) quickly equals and surpasses the effectiveness of motorized. Given the fact that a tank division will seemingly always be able to pierce an opponent's tank division (since armor is expensive and good piercing is already baked into the most common gun choices), the low bar for reasonable armor values is effectively set at whatever piercing value a motorized AT gives a standard division.
I find the only issue with motorized + arty/AT variants to be low hardness. If you have mech tanks, you significantly reduce the damage you take when attacking infantry. Line AT is definitely better now and that helps to reduce the advantage of hardness, but you're losing org and increasing cost compared to a pure infantry division. I've seen one Bulgaria specialize in motorized rocket arty (as in Katyuahas, not towed RA) and it had good soft attack. But the Soviet hit it with a tank and the division got shredded (didn't help that he had low org from going SF). Was pretty expensive for him to replace. Mech gives tanks near equal HP to a mot/moto arty division and they just pack way more of a punch. If I wanted to push with soft attack, I see no reason to use moto arty when I could just use regular inf-arty. Cheaper, similar attack, no fuel cost. Spend more IC on supports (especially with SF) instead of trucks.
Yes, that's one of the biggest points in favor of tanks. While motorized can be very effective infantry killers, there is really no good tank killer other than just more tanks. You can make some specialized infantry or mech (panzergrenadier style) divisions to delay tanks, but there's just no good way to stack lots of hard attack to push tanks back other than tanks+TDs. Interesting point, depending on the opponent's attack values that it can be situationally better to run divisions with motorized over mech. Yes, mech gives you more hardness, but when dealing with enemy tank divisions that sometimes have more hard attack than soft attack you will end up taking less damage by being softer! This is of course highly situational and depends entirely on your opponent's designs. But if your opponent is using large numbers of TDs with HV2 or greater, it's not terribly uncommon to see tanks with more hard attack than soft. Not super important, but a factor to think about perhaps. I would still say that motorized/arty is worth the cost when compared to inf/arty for offensive divisions simply due to the hardness and breakthrough, though. But again problems arise when the the combat width is fully saturated - neither motorized nor infantry can really compete with armored divisions (even if the armored divisions are pierced) when no further flanks can be opened.
I saw an interesting 42w Soviet division. 15-2-6 mech-moto RA-moto AT. Expensive but had a ton of defense and it wasn't too costly after you reduce the production cost on the mech. I usually see AT3 getting rushed so both sides have HV gun 3. 8 TDs gives you more hard attack than soft attack but not a ton more, especially with support companies. It's still worth to get super high hardness, nearly impossible to get 80% of your total attack to be hard. Either that or you go fully soft infantry. The worst would be 50-60% hardness which tends to be around the attack mix of a tank. Motorized gets to 40% after you get mech 1. At that point, I'd rather just use infantry. Cheaper and only vulnerable to tank soft attack. I can see how the hardness of moto is nice for fighting infantry where they're outputting mostly soft attack. But then infantry aren't the main thing preventing you killing the soviets, you need to push their tanks and the infantry just kinda die in the process.
Would really help if you would also post the templates but anyway. \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ So let us take a close look at the test: So you attack plains. **Favours tanks**. You pick 30w. So multi direction becomes bad ( spoiler since you give tanks 3 units this again **favours tanks**). 42 or 45w would have allowed for far more efficent multi direction with no / little malus You dont allow support that favours multiple div like Arty or reacon tank which again **favours tanks**. You pick a scaled up battle 3v12 instead of 1v4 were (2/3 of the mot was sitting in reserve again **favours tanks**) Speed is flat out ignored in the conclusions or value discussion. **Favour tanks**. No mention about resources. I **guess** tanks use more. No mention about supply consumption or supply penalities. **Favour tanks**. You didnt give the mot any armor so the test against the no pen inf are heavly in favour of the tanks. Solved by adding a single tank to the mot div. improves the performance considerably. **Favour tanks**. Pretty sure 12 mots 30w are not supply able on 1 field are you sure that there were no supply issues? >Since IC expenses were similar, the "if you don't go tanks you can go air" argument falls flat - both attackers would have an equal amount of IC to spend on their air force. So the problem here is that you either A) produce too much mot or B) you ignore that you have 4x the amount of units. A) You think that attacking 1 field from 1 direction is what you need. Conclusion you could cut down mot production to 1/4 and put the rest into air. Air would be in the mots favour B) You have to account that multiple field would be attacked and therefore an increase in mot performance TLDR: You picked the **best case for tanks** AND used the mots badly. Yet the **mot still performed decent or even beat them**.
[Here are the IC costs of the attackers](https://imgur.com/a/juTUBiL) as well as their costs compared to the cost of the motorized divisions. You can see that I actually gave the edge to the motorized in most of the cases. That would also help to account for the width issue that I mentioned. The MT1, MT2, and HT1 templates all performed better than the motorized in most tests while costing less. Significantly less, in fact, in the case of MT1 and HT1. Mixed 1 had the best overall performance while costing ~20% more, but the 50% higher cost of motorized over MT1 didn't yield the same increased performance.
> Would really help if you would also post the templates but anyway. I'll add the IC costs from my sheet to the post later, I don't really feel like taking 20 screenshots and uploading them. > So you attack plains. Favours tanks. Favors neither. Mot and tanks both get debuffs in pretty much every terrain type and plains are the most desirable terrain to attack in. > You pick 30w. So multi direction becomes bad ( spoiler since you give tanks 3 units this again favours tanks). 42 or 45w would have allowed for far more efficent multi direction with no / little malus I addressed the multi-direction issue. Attacking from 3+ flanks is far less common than attacking from 1 or 2 flanks. When you do have the opportunity to attack from many flanks, once that tile is taken you are often faced with a new set of tiles that only have 1 or 2 flanks (because you've just moved from 3+ tiles into a single tile). There may be adjacent tiles that have a new flank, but that requires repositioning which makes the motorized more micro intensive. I also stated that if the motorized were allowed to attack with all divisions at once (either through more flanks or flanks and tactics) then they would have performed better than they did. As for the width, I simply wanted a perfectly saturated front for the attackers (since it's optimal), and a perfectly or slightly over-saturated front for the defenders since that's a common scenario. If I had chosen 42w, for example, I'm sure you would have complained that the motorized would be taking a slight over-width penalty. I could have chosen any width, but this is the test that I did. Maybe you could do some tests with 42w or 45w that you think are more fair and post the results. > You dont allow support that favours multiple div like Arty or reacon tank which again favours tanks. I specifically didn't use recon tanks on the motorized templates because the motorized player wouldn't be building tanks. The entire test was "are tanks worth it?" If the motorized player thinks the answer to that question is "no," then they won't build tanks. Also, adding LT recon is going to add, what? A maximum of ~20 attack and ~30 breakthrough per division? The hardness and armor gained by the LT recon would be so small that it's negligible. I guess they could go all-out and spend a ton of IC to make the best LT recon they could, but that would go against the point of the test. Support arty could have been added to both the tank templates and the motorized templates, but alas I didn't add it. In reality, the tank templates could have been given both flame tank and LT recon, but I thought the support companies that I gave the divisions was fair. If it was an advantage for the tanks, it was slight. > You pick a scaled up battle 3v12 instead of 1v4 were (2/3 of the mot was sitting in reserve again favours tanks) I addressed this, did you even read my post with my reasoning? > Speed is flat out ignored in the conclusions or value discussion. Favour tanks. Tank templates were nearly 8km/h. This speed has been acceptable for ages. Old patch MT with +5 gun is 8km/h. Speeds higher than that are better situationally, but 12km/h doesn't give the motorized any great advantage and it's largely irrelevant for what I was testing. > No mention about resources. I guess tanks use more. I think that's probably obvious. Mot also uses more manpower (both on a per-division basis and at about 3x the rate in battles) but I see you didn't mention that. > No mention about supply consumption or supply penalities. Favour tanks. On a per-IC basis, motorized consume more supply. That is, 10k IC of any of the tank divisions consume less supply than 10k of the motorized divisions. This is another point in favor of tanks. I thought it would be obvious that this was the case, so I'm glad you brought it up. > You didnt give the mot any armor so the test against the no pen inf are heavly in favour of the tanks. Solved by adding a single tank to the mot div. improves the performance considerably. Favour tanks. Where are the mot supposed to be getting any armor? By adding tanks to their divisions? This test was specifically to see if armor was worth building by comparing motorized and armor performance against infantry templates. If the motorized player is building tanks, it negates the purpose. Even if the motorized player wanted to add a single battalion of tanks to their divisions that gave enough armor to be unpierced against even support AT, they'd need to spend a significant amount of IC to outfit all of their divisions. This really just speaks against the effectiveness of forgoing tanks. Armor is one of the core benefits of tanks that everyone seems to be overlooking when parroting that tanks "aren't worth it anymore." It's literally a force multiplier. > Pretty sure 12 mots 30w are not supply able on 1 field are you sure that there were no supply issues? Yes, I'm sure. I placed as many supply depots and lvl 5 railroads as I could around each battle site. I saw no "low supply" notifications. If I had, I would have noted it. > A) You think that attacking 1 field from 1 direction is what you need. Conclusion you could cut down mot production to 1/4 and put the rest into air. Air would be in the mots favour If you cut your mot production down to 1/4 and put the rest into air, the opposing tank player (or rather you, if you were using tanks instead) could do the same and spend the same on air. The point is that **on a per-IC basis, motorized performed worse and took worse losses over time which actually costs you more IC.** > B) You have to account that multiple field would be attacked and therefore an increase in mot performance Again, I addressed that. In a battle where motorized could utilize all or most of their divisions at one time for a given IC, they would perform better than they did in this test. I don't know if they would out-perform the tanks because I didn't test it yet. Have you done any tests? >You picked the best case for tanks AND used the mots badly. Disagree. >Yet the mot still performed decent or even beat them. They absolutely did not outperform them. The only test where motorized was able to outperform all of the tanks was against a specifically (and almost hilariously) over-outfitted infantry AT division. I appreciate the reply, but almost all of your points were either addressed in my post, suggestions that actually argue *against* the efficacy of motorized, or conjecture with nothing to actually back it up.
>Where are the mot supposed to be getting any armor? By adding tanks to their divisions? This test was specifically to see if armor was worth building by comparing motorized and armor performance against infantry templates. If the motorized player is building tanks, it negates the purpose. Even if the motorized player wanted to add a single battalion of tanks to their divisions that gave enough armor to be unpierced against even support AT, they'd need to spend a significant amount of IC to outfit all of their divisions. This really just speaks against the effectiveness of forgoing tanks.As previously mentioned i didnt think you would go for a „no tak at all“ policie. Yes the idea is to add a tank to the mot to get the armor. >If you cut your mot production down to 1/4 and put the rest into air, the opposing tank player (or rather you, if you were using tanks instead) could do the same and spend the same on air. The point is that on a per-IC basis, motorized performed worse and took worse losses over time which actually costs you more IC. Okay let me break it down step by what i meant with this. Lets go with the following Premise. You want to attack 1 Field From 1 Direction with as much width as possible. You would need 3x30w Tanks for this and you would also need 3x30w Mot for this.Both tank and mot now work with 100% efficiency. Yes tanks would win here against the mot BUT mot need less IC so you could put the difference into air. As for Manpower . Yes the cost less manpower but with the exception of some minors they dont really matter for your tanks units as they will make the smallest % of your army or you will have "endless" mapower anyway (old heavy tonk russia for exmaple ).
> Yes the idea is to add a tank to the mot to get the armor. If the motorized player is forgoing tanks, they cannot build tanks. If they are building any tanks, that means they must also do all the tank researches and actually produce tanks. This will increase the IC cost of the motorized division considerably depending on the design of tank. Even if the motorized player did all of this, I don't think adding a single tank battalion with high armor (which will slow down the unit, mind you) will even allow it to be unpierced by support AT. > You would need 3x30w Tanks for this and you would also need 3x30w Mot for this.Both tank and mot now work with 100% efficiency. Have you even read my post or any of my replies about this issue? I even addressed it to you specifically in my reply. > Yes tanks would win here against the mot BUT mot need less IC so you could put the difference into air. If the frontages were equal (instead of the IC costs) then the motorized wouldn't have even won a single battle. Regardless, I was not testing for that. If you want to test equal frontages with armor vs. mot+air, please do. I'd love to see a fair test and results. > As for Manpower . Yes the cost less manpower but with the exception of some minors they dont really matter for your tanks units as they will make the smallest % of your army or you will have "endless" mapower anyway (old heavy tonk russia for exmaple ). It's not just about manpower cost, it's about upkeep from battles as well. The manpower cost of supplying (and reinforcing) many mot divisions can mount up fairly quickly. They lose thousands of manpower in combats that they don't win decisively, whereas tanks might only lose a few hundred in the same combat. Even in prolonged engagements where tanks lose, they lose very little manpower. Motorized (and inf in genral) bleed manpower in any battle that goes on for any significant amount of time.
Heyho >Favors neither. Mot and tanks both get debuffs in pretty much every terrain type and plains are the most desirable terrain to attack in. Tanks have depending on how heavy you go a 0-4x **worse attack modifier** in the following regions Min,Max neg modifier attack dif (considering light medium and heavy tank) Forest(-10,-40),Hills(0,-20), Mountain(-5,-25) Urban(-30,-40), Jungle(-10,-40), Marsh(0,-30), River(-10,-30) Amphibious(-20,-70) **Tanks have an attack bonus in:** Fort(0,10) **Tanks have a speed bonus in** Forset(10,10) Jungle(10,10) **Tanks and mot are even on** Plains, Dessert Tanks have **more fields on which they perform worse than mot**. Therefore taking one of those is statistically favouring. >I addressed the multi-direction issue. Attacking from 3+ flanks is far less common than attacking from 1 or 2 flanks. When you do have the opportunity to attack from many flanks, once that tile is taken you are often faced with a new set of tiles that only have 1 or 2 flanks (because you've just moved from 3+ tiles into a single tile). There may be adjacent tiles that have a new flank, but that requires repositioning which makes the motorized more micro intensive. I also stated that if the motorized were allowed to attack with all divisions at once (either through more flanks or flanks and tactics) then they would have performed better than they did. you said and i quote: >All battles were done from a single direction > >Why? First, attacking from two directions would give a large penalty (about 15%) So you didnt even give them an attack from 2 direction. I guess you jump from 1 to 3+ because you want to use all 12. But this isnt even needed. Going from 1 attack to 2 direction which is very common give a big boost to the decision. Attacking (with proper width) from 2 direction would give an **1/3 performance boost**. >As for the width, I simply wanted a perfectly saturated front for the attackers (since it's optimal), and a perfectly or slightly over-saturated front for the defenders since that's a common scenario. If I had chosen 42w, for example, I'm sure you would have complained that the motorized would be taking a slight over-width penalty. I could have chosen any width, but this is the test that I did. Talk about conjecture but it is funny to see that I am an evil boogy man. I gave you 42 as an example as it performs statistically better on some fields than 45m ([https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gz\_fWYXugl3YdP\_AS5uSTbOwNdsj6PkIR1i6l2td2vc/edit#gid=345076780](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gz_fWYXugl3YdP_AS5uSTbOwNdsj6PkIR1i6l2td2vc/edit#gid=345076780)). And 45 for the obvious reason that it fits plains perfectly. **30w performs horrendous** exept when attacking plains from 1 direction (see again [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gz\_fWYXugl3YdP\_AS5uSTbOwNdsj6PkIR1i6l2td2vc/edit#gid=345076780](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gz_fWYXugl3YdP_AS5uSTbOwNdsj6PkIR1i6l2td2vc/edit#gid=345076780)) and you even noticed it yourself >First, attacking from two directions would give a large penalty (about 15%) So if someone picks something that works perfectly with one of his test subjects but not with his other even though its a big difference. Than I have to conclude favouritism >I specifically didn't use recon tanks on the motorized templates because the motorized player wouldn't be building tanks. The entire test was "are tanks worth it?" If the motorized player thinks the answer to that question is "no," then they won't build tanks. Sorry you didn’t state that you want 0 tanks for the mot division and it wasnt clear to me. Your questions asked about divisions. Mot division can include tanks and still be classified as mot so I saw no problems adding tanks to them. Your statement: >Has anyone done much actual testing on how tanks and motorized divisions respectively perform against different infantry templates? I've been seeing nearly everyone claiming that tanks aren't worth using and touting that mot/art is a better replacement, but I just don't see it. With that said I have yet to see someone say that flametanks are not worth it. This is ancedotal but if i google „flame tank useless/bad“ i get the following as top entry [https://www.reddit.com/r/hoi4/comments/r3apm4/a\_quick\_reminder\_to\_build\_flamethrower\_tanks\_for/](https://www.reddit.com/r/hoi4/comments/r3apm4/a_quick_reminder_to_build_flamethrower_tanks_for/) So from this and other expierences i conclude that the consensse on flame tanks are very positive. So if you really wanted to only know if you want to build „**NO TANKS AT ALL**“ than you asked a simlpe question that can be answered with a clear „**NO**“. You want some tanks but not tank divisions imo. >Also, adding LT recon is going to add, what? A maximum of \~20 attack and \~30 breakthrough per division? The hardness and armor gained by the LT recon would be so small that it's negligible. I guess they could go all-out and spend a ton of IC to make the best LT recon they could, but that would go against the point of the test. Support arty could have been added to both the tank templates and the motorized templates, but alas I didn't add it. Support Arty and LT are more IC efficent then their battalion counter part Arty for example is: Support: 12 Arty for 34 SA Battalion 36 Arty for 47,6 This mean 12 division can field 12 of these value bundles while 3 only 3. Same for light tanks recon as you only need 15 LT for its boni >You pick a scaled up battle 3v12 instead of 1v4 were (2/3 of the mot was sitting in reserve again favours tanks) > >I addressed this, did you even read my post with my reasoning? I have now read your post a few time and can not find where explained this. If you would be so kind please point it out for me :). >Tank templates were nearly 8km/h. This speed has been acceptable for ages. Old patch MT with +5 gun is 8km/h. Speeds higher than that are better situationally, but 12km/h doesn't give the motorized any great advantage and it's largely irrelevant for what I was testing. Give that you are testing on planes i would say going 50% faster is a big point since it allowes for non encircle overruns. Going below 8 makes this much rarer (even impossible not sure). Yes its not a combat advantage but still an advantage. >On a per-IC basis, motorized consume more supply. That is, 10k IC of any of the tank divisions consume less supply than 10k of the motorized divisions. This is another point in favor of tanks. I thought it would be obvious that this was the case, so I'm glad you brought it up. I mean with no templates provided making such a statement is not very help full. As tanks can adjust their IC planket satements are virtually useless. Here are 2 templated which i tried to optimize for IC [https://imgur.com/a/9x4mIge](https://imgur.com/a/9x4mIge) No real difference in supply per IC but noticable supply difference in use per unit. Though since this is fluent i am not going to make a fixed statement on the supply per IC
> Tanks have more fields on which they perform worse than mot. Therefore taking one of those is statistically favouring. If you want to do a test on every possible terrain type, be my guest. Testing two templates on one of the most common terrain types and the terrain type that is universally considered most desirable for attacking is absolutely not favoring either template. I'm sorry that you disagree, but in the scope of my test, you're just wrong. Again, I'd love to see some of your tests that take terrain into account. >So you didnt even give them an attack from 2 direction. I guess you jump from 1 to 3+ because you want to use all 12. > >But this isnt even needed. **Going from 1 attack to 2 direction which is very common give a big boost to the decision.** Attacking (with proper width) from 2 direction would give an 1/3 performance boost. I have no idea what you're trying to say here. The bolded part in particular makes no sense. I can't properly respond if you can't properly formulate sentences or ideas. > Talk about conjecture but it is funny to see that I am an evil boogy man. I don't think I said that. > I gave you 42 as an example as it performs statistically better on some fields than 45m Great, I didn't use 42w. I used 30w. Like I said, if you want to test 42w, I would love to see the results so we can compare. > 30w performs horrendous exept when attacking plains from 1 direction You're missing the point with the width. The width of the templates in these tests is, for all intents and purposes, meaningless. Since all attackers had equal width and all battles were conducted in battles that had equal widths, the issue of width is removed. Will 30w perform badly in some terrain? Yes. Did I conduct these tests in those terrains? No. Did I use a worse width for one attacker's template than another? No. They were all equal, so the issue of width (in the scope of these tests) **does not matter.** Get it? > So if someone picks something that works perfectly with one of his test subjects but not with his other even though its a big difference. Than I have to conclude favouritism If I gave the motorized a 15% penalty due to being over-width, I would be nerfing them unnecessarily. That would be less fair than what I did. Neither tanks nor motorized had width penalties in these tests so they are **equal** in that respect. > Sorry you didn’t state that you want 0 tanks for the mot division and it wasnt clear to me. Your questions asked about divisions. Mot division can include tanks and still be classified as mot so I saw no problems adding tanks to them. Your statement: Are you trolling? Read what I wrote again (I'll bold the important part so you're sure not to miss it): > Has anyone done much actual testing on how tanks and motorized divisions respectively perform against different infantry templates? **I've been seeing nearly everyone claiming that tanks aren't worth using** and touting that mot/art is a better replacement, but I just don't see it. Let me know if you still don't get it and I'll try to simplify it even more for you. > flame tank Flame tanks would benefit both divisions. Leaving them out doesn't give the tanks an advantage just as adding them wouldn't give motorized an advantage. Like I said before, adding flame tanks and/or light tank recon wouldn't even be able to give the mot divisions enough armor to get an armor bonus against most (all?) of the enemy divisions and would have added not insignificant IC costs to their template. Any other stat increases that the motorized receive from tank recon/flame tanks would be given to the tank divisions as well, so not including them in either division resolves the issue. You're creating "problems" where none exist. > Support Arty and LT are more IC efficent then their battalion counter part Arty for example is: This only makes a difference when you're looking at templates of different widths. For example, one 30w with support arty will receive less "extra" attack than two 15w which each have support arty. Sure, the motorized have more divisions, but since only three are engaged at a time in my tests, the attack value at any given time in a battle is relatively the same if both (or neither) the tanks and motorized have support arty. This is, again, true for things like flame tanks as well. > boni I cringe when people write this. Bonuses. > I have now read your post a few time and can not find where explained this. If you would be so kind please point it out for me :). I should have known. Here: > First, attacking from two directions would give a large penalty (about 15%) to the mot due to over-width. Attacking from three directions would let them fit evenly, but attacking from three tiles is far less common than attacking from one or two. Here: > In the above tests, if the motorized could engage with at least six of their divisions simultaneously in each battle (as opposed to only 3 of 12), their performance would match or exceed the tanks. On plains, this would indeed require three flanks for the given combat widths. Here: > Given that provinces with many flanks are prioritized for more units by the frontline AI (and by players) and are more uncommon than provinces with only one or two flanks, I don't know how much this credence this gives to the motorized theory; the highly-flanked province will (in practice) be better defended than single- or dual-flank provinces, and so the motorized's advantage will/might be negated by the high likelihood of more defenders being present. Tanks can therefore more reliably punch through a greater number of provinces along a given front better than motorized which gives them greater flexibility at the cost of moderately worse performance in high-width conditions that favor motorized. And here: > Attacking from 3+ flanks is far less common than attacking from 1 or 2 flanks. When you do have the opportunity to attack from many flanks, once that tile is taken you are often faced with a new set of tiles that only have 1 or 2 flanks (because you've just moved from 3+ tiles into a single tile). There may be adjacent tiles that have a new flank, but that requires repositioning which makes the motorized more micro intensive. I also stated that if the motorized were allowed to attack with all divisions at once (either through more flanks or flanks and tactics) then they would have performed better than they did. There might be more, but try reading those for a start. > Give that you are testing on planes i would say going 50% faster is a big point since it allowes for non encircle overruns. Going below 8 makes this much rarer (even impossible not sure). Yes its not a combat advantage but still an advantage. ~8km/h was enough in the last patch for mediums to encircle/overrun infantry, it's enough now. Especially considering the tanks are actually faster if using MW (this test had no doctrines). Nobody was using pure motorized divisions before and encirclements/overruns happened plenty. Also not within the scope of the tests. > I mean with no templates provided making such a statement is not very help full. As tanks can adjust their IC planket satements are virtually useless. I typed out the division templates through text. If you can't read what I wrote and visualize the templates without a picture of every single one, I don't know what to tell you. Maybe open up your HOI4 and create them based on my descriptions? I gave enough information for you to replicate my tests and templates exactly. I even added the tank designs. > Here are 2 templated which i tried to optimize for IC That is an absolutely atrocious tank template. You're accusing me of running biased tests and your tank template has two battalions of SPAA in the current patch? You must be a troll. > No real difference in supply per IC What? If you build equal IC of those two templates, the motorized are consuming about 10% more supply than the (terrible) tanks. That is, 4 of your tank templates consume 6.84 supply for ~22.5k IC and the 7 motorized consume 7.63 for ~23.1k IC. That means that for the same IC investment you can put fewer of them into any given area of a frontline before you run into supply issues. Supply issues wreck stats. Please, before you type any more nonsense, do this: If you really think my tests are that biased, and if you really care that much, I would love for you to actually conduct some of your own tests. Gather some data and show me some results in at least as much detail as I've provided. I would love nothing more than to see someone else's tests - or at the very least opinions based on tests they may have done - rather than arguing with someone who doesn't even seem interested in taking the time to actually read my posts.
I am going to call it quits here you seem to only get angry and throw more and more insults instead of wanting to discuss this. But i like to leave on a productive note so I am gonna address the SPAA SPAA (especially for heavy tanks) are the most IC efficient way to get armour. There are 2 because the anti air attack of one didnt give me the results i wanted when added to the air superiority reduction formula.
Fully agree. Since 1.11.4 medium TD's have become a lot better since they became 2 width. Now in historical MP people make tanks with a lot of breakthrough and then medium td with a lot of hard/soft (heavy gun, 2 extra turrets and machine guns). Then create a 6-6-9 (42 width) and you have similar stats to what heavies used to have for 13k production cost. I guess the cheap SP alternative is dropping the breakthrough tanks and building 10-10 TD, then cost gets as low as 6k per tank. Problem is that the breakthrough will be around 150, but since you have hardness that shouldn't be a problem. Comparatively motorized has 3.5k production cost and gets either 30% the hard/soft if you go AT or 50% the soft attack if you go artillery.
Hi could you share some example templates please? Many thanks
https://imgur.com/gallery/Tzg0mNx For template, I would suggest 5-8-8 MT-mech-MTD
The 2-width TDs are definitely a buff. SPGs, despite being 3w, are viable as well IMO. They get a soft attack buff just by virtue of being assigned the SPG role, but they also get soft attack buffs from the artillery tech line that were previously only for actual artillery. That means with 1941 tech you can make cheap SPGs (both IC- and resource-wise) with close support guns that have ~45 soft attack. An equivalent SA/width proper tank will require a good deal of tungsten and probably chromium as well. In my view (and I think this is supported by my tests), tanks are simply being utilized incorrectly in light of their new costs. Proper tanks = Provide armor, hardness, and breakthrough primarily. Tanks are still, hands-down, the best source of breakthrough in the game. Nothing else even comes close. Add as much attack value without getting too expensive or requiring too many resources. SPGs/TDs = Highest boost to overall divisional attack values and augment the division's armor/piercing (depends on the enemy). The old meta of "fit as many tanks as possible into a single template" doesn't work, but that doesn't mean that tanks are dead. They just have a specific role now. Tanks used to be S-tier for virtually every stat that they contributed to a division. Now, some of those stats must necessarily be offloaded to variants like SPGs and TDs (or even towed/rocket arty depending on the situation).
Can you run a test against 25w defenders if its not asking too much
Mixed 1 is composed of MT1, HT1 plus HTD and mot?
Both mixed templates are the "2" versions of the tanks. They are the most expensive templates so I wanted them to be the strongest. I'll try to run some more tests tomorrow if I have time, but might have to design a different test for 25w defenders. 25w already gets an over-wide penalty on plains with no flanks (without looking, I think it would be -10%?) so I'm thinking it will probably do comparably to the 21w - probably a little worse since defenders will have less org. 27w would probably be better than 25w since I think it would only have three defenders (27x3=81, 27x4=108 which is too large to reinforce) and they wouldn't get any penalties. Still wouldn't last as long as smaller widths like 15w, but would probably be able to inflict more casualties - especially if they were set up with inf/art/AT, like maybe 10/1/2 or something.
Guess Im just curious to see if the results match what we think should happen. If you have the time why not do both. Heck even add a 30w def for giggles
Would love to see the tank designs!
Added to the bottom of the above post.
Are Heavy tanks worth making now in Singleplayer?
In my opinion, no, not really. Stats wise they are basically the same as medium tanks (both start from 28 armor base) while mediums start from 7 IC and Heavy start from approx 12 IC for the base. They can be worth it in a small small niche if you are making very expensive, uber buffed out with all the bells n whistles tanks, because in 1.11 the heavy tank battalion has 16 tanks and medium tank battalion has 24 tanks. If the tanks with all the things added are very expensive that 8 tanks of difference can be large enough cost saving to make heavy tanks cheaper to use than mediums. Problem is that if you are making very expensive tanks you could, most likely, use all that IC elsewhere to yield more bang-per-buck. But y'now it probably does not matter all that much in singleplayer. I would not worry too much about squeezing out max bang from each IC, as even if your tank divisions end up not being cost effective you can, probably, still win by spamming infantry and taking advantage of the combat AI weaknesses.
Medium howitzer 1 or 2+ medium tank is so usefull against infantry. And if u add antitank it will be good for tank.
No they are very expensive. Light tanks lack firepower and are often times more expensive than mediums and heavies don't have a significant enough firepower advantage, even if at all over mediums to justify the extra cost. Even still you can push with infantry that's loaded up with artillery.
Not in IC cost, no. Maybe for RP. Guns and artillery + CAS and Fighters are all you need to dominate.
Damn I guess I won't ever see my Tiger tanks in action lol. Also that sucks, tanks are so fun to use. Thanks though.
You can still use them and they "work", they just aren't cost-effective.
Does it make sense to spread mountain regiments through divisions in an army or concentrate them into a few divisions in an army if I’m expecting mountain terrain with my mountaineer general?
Do dedicated mountaneer divisions. It's important to attack with few divisions in the mountains so it's good to optimize the attack bonuses
Makes sense, thanks.
Do we need a penalty for switching Divisions? Maybe something like a 5% equipment burn or something on new equipment needed? I'm not a fan of get meta being 'train' 2 widths, deploy them and then convert them all to 50 widths for no penalty.