Once I was playing Portugal and unified with Brazil, I then declared on Spain after the finished the civil war and I expected a cake walk but the German air volunteers arrived and I quickly found myself blasted all the way back to the starting line and that’s when the German panzer arrived. that was when I really appreciated air superiority and aa
One time I did the same and won than sent my army to invade Guangxi but France went monarchy and took all of Iberia and I didn't even get a notification that they where doing a focus to get a free war goal, took years to get back home ☹️.
That is when I would probably press a special little key under the ESC button and type TAG GER in the little window that appears and then press enter. After that just select those Panzets and Planes and press the little red trash button. Then just have a good time. Oh yeah and remember to play with a mod which removes planes from the game entirely.
@@Cerabelus When I played as GER and rushed NED and FRA, I wanted to get some divisions to INS and Vietnam. Took more than a month for them to sail there 😆 Same with playing as SOV and wanting to put armies on the border in the east. A full month of trains to go from ~Minsk to ~Vladivostok 🥲 So yeah, I feel ya! 😆
What I like about these games is that you can explain the effect of certain mistakes, and how to fix them. I do see a pattern here in these save games: Germany is always the final opponent ;-)
I have never had a problem with Germany(ok, maybe once as Yugoslavia), what difficulty level do people usually play? I choose third one as the neutral one without debuffs and buffs. But I noticed that most of the mistakes I learned to avoid myself, since I rarely watch HoI4 videos but play it a lot when I have some free time
No radio's was the biggest mistake, no radio's then attacking Germany who has natural reinforcement ability and many boosters from doctrine, generals, chief of staff, chief of army etc etc etc. You can compensate not controlling the skies with indigenous AA in all divisions and building AA in Frontline and Industrial provinces, but you cant neglect radios against a victorious AI Germany.
Just make 500 2 width cavalry (or infantry) set it to garrison all the German core territory, then declare war on someone they guarantee or someone in their faction (like Hungary or Romania, will not work if they are puppets)
@@DeathEatsCurry yep I remember when I first learned how important it was as my maginot line was fucking leveled by strat bombers and my man power drained rapidly from CAS
I've gotten to where I use heavy fighters, tactical bombers, and scout planes myself. Not sure if that's optimal but a lot of factions have a research company with a bonus for those three and they seem to be versatile enough and I like versatility (and just attaching air wings to generals so that I don't have to micro as much).
The biggest disaster has to be that even two years later, Belgium still hasn't received a proper focus tree. Ffs, we got Latam focus trees and one for Aussa before Belgium.
Please make a part 2. This was a fantastic video and I learned a lot. I really enjoyed watching your resilience and the way that you did not get discouraged by the losses and the dire looking nature of the scenario at times. Thank you, you have inspired me to go back to some of my own save games and make adjustments to my strategy. Also build some air :)
@Bitt3rSteel at 21:10 your units count as encircled cause your ports both count to the north sea tile, which isn't defended by your fleet. So Germany is intercepting all your supply on sea.
I Find it Honestly Amazing how much Air is generally Neglected by people, I would argue its the most important factor, You will struggle to do anything without air and with complete air dominance you will be able to do a good amount with just 10/0s, even offensively.
Excellent job as always. Loved the repeated rants about the lack of planes. I always find it weird that people who clearly like HoI4 enough to watch youtube vids about it make basic mistakes like not building air/terrible templates etc. Also gotta say I love the way you used your tanks in the end. Not gonna lie watching you draw up some of those huge plans for mass encirclements I had visions of you getting yourself trapped and overrun. Pocketing 3-4 enemies divisions at a time might not be as fun as nabbing their entire army in one go, but it's a hell of a lot safer, especially when you stand to be hurt so badly by losing your entire army. Now time for me to give it a go and see if I can find a way to take out the Germans as well.
In the end it's all about playstyle. I just do 7-2 for my entire army even as minor, skip planes and tanks and it works. Whereas Bitt3r prefers 40 width for doing small pushes and garbage infantry to hold the rest. The consequences are that while Bitt3r usually has 10-15 factories for infantry equipment and even less on artillery and rest on planes, I got like 30-40 factories on artillery, in late game maybe even 50+. The same goes for infantry equipment.
"Loved the repeated rants about the lack of planes." Look very carefully at the image in 27:55 now maybe my eyes are tricking me but I can clearly read "2246 undeployed fighters" he had the planes, he just didn't use them for whatever reason
the units won't cover the tile near florence because of the spearhead order, they will advance to the furthest point in the frontline towards their spearhead.
@@cm01 I mean, you can have a row of good luck, but still make some mistakes such as bad logistics, overextending, staying behind in some technology, not calculating the following months, bad manoeuvres and getting your divisions encircles, etc. I suffered all that, but staying behind for so long with interwar fighters, getting outproduced by the Axis but somehow he then managed to conquer France, Spain and the British Empire? Sure buddy, like you sabotaged your own game to get a "save disaster campaign".
This one was so hard. I tried to keep as much cores as possible but they constantly attacked me. Could never get air dominance. But after invading Italy, it went well. I consider play it again with repeating invasions of North Italy, encircling all divisions on the Alpes front, then fall back again. Rinse and repeat until Germany is out of divisions. Cheesy, I know, but I will try :)
When an enemy is pinning you to move troops into a tile you want to defend/hold, you can break the pin by attacking another tile behind them. If the path goes through the tile where the divisions are pinning you/moving troops, it will attack anyways and stop the troops from moving. This can be very useful, especially when the game won't let you attack. You could have used this at 17:20 to counter-pin the troops walking into nice and stop their reinforcement.
1:03:47 this is because of the spearhead order, it makes them wanna concetrate in an area and push there ignoring the flanks. shouldn't be used on its own, should put infantry to follow up
bittersteel: *always tries his best to pronounce city names in their native tongue* also bittersteel: *pronounces dutch city names with an american accent*
Can’t wait for you to do my Spain save from the 1950s😅 Sorry about sending that mess to you, I kept trying to save it and got as far as invading denmark but german air is just insane.
1:04:00 This is because you are using a Spearhead maneuver. They will pile on near the Spearhead starting point, this is because you made a 1 tile Spearhead order as well. Additionally, when you have shit air/fighters, don't bother trying to do air superiority. Just do interception that way you can at least disrupt the CAS somewhat while minimizing your losses.
Not even 10 minutes in watching and already spotted that germany did let poland stay alive in Zaolzie and is surrounding it with divisions... Hoi4 AI in a nutshell xD
The reason why your tanks wont stay to defend that one tile in Italy is because you had a spearhead attack order set up. if you change that to a regular attack order the units will cover the entire front line
It worked, well done! Hard to say you did anything wrong in the face of success. Since the air war had been lost, I think you should have focused on naval bombers and possibly strat bombers to damage mils and infrastructure. Naval unit are just too vulnerable to air.
@Bitt3rSteel Only thing I am thinking about is looking at the production licences of your puppets, might even release the UK. Yes it will cost you factories but you can take their licences for free meaning free fighter 2 design straight at the beginning of this safe. Would have helped you SO MUCH. Your welcome ;)
Would there have been a possibility of dissolving the Bulgarian Empire faction and joining the Allies instead, to draw them into the war with Germany and reinforce your lines with US troops, or was there something like ideology preventing that?
Two major lessons: 1) Air Power is absolutely king. It decides everything unless you're actually a God, and even then it's so important it's not even funny. 2) Naval invade behind your enemy for maximum cheese.
Bitt3rSteal: just saved a run by a naval invasion and pointing out that planes are important me: Never uses Planes and doesn't even know how to do Naval invasions cause I have no idea how to get naval superiority but I still beat the soviets with only infanterie with artillerie =0
Any up-to-date guides you would recommend? I find that no matter who I play or what I do, I am always behind on production. Because of that, I almost have no room for air production. I see people with all these factories and I'm like, "when would I have built all of this?" Maybe I am switching templates too early too?
you havent mastered the art of infantry only defense. its tough, but when your generals are leveled up and you go grand battleplan, 10/0 with enough support cant be moved. mostly...
I've noticed you say that transports are pointless several times in videos, but then I've also seen you lament a lack of supply stopping your spearheads and naval invasions too. I think that you might be dismissing one of your tools without realizing that you have a use for it. I know how much you love your armor to keep pushing and vital pockets that can hold out as distractions.
........i look at this....and im just confused. if you have enough anti air, than planes do nothing. i think the problem in the end was (and that confused) that the units that italy fought were not getting any strength back. i remember colonial units being bugged....then again, this was long ago and the Systems are now different. might be wrong about this one.
@@MundaneThingsBackwards I’ve played the game enough times. I’m just saying that it would behoove many to go after Germany early on so you have no one else stopping you.
Once I was playing Portugal and unified with Brazil, I then declared on Spain after the finished the civil war and I expected a cake walk but the German air volunteers arrived and I quickly found myself blasted all the way back to the starting line and that’s when the German panzer arrived. that was when I really appreciated air superiority and aa
Yeah man, you really gotta rush Spain before the German volunteers show up or you're gonna have a bad time
One time I did the same and won than sent my army to invade Guangxi but France went monarchy and took all of Iberia and I didn't even get a notification that they where doing a focus to get a free war goal, took years to get back home ☹️.
That is when I would probably press a special little key under the ESC button and type TAG GER in the little window that appears and then press enter. After that just select those Panzets and Planes and press the little red trash button. Then just have a good time. Oh yeah and remember to play with a mod which removes planes from the game entirely.
@@iGamezRo
WTF....?
No.
@@Cerabelus
When I played as GER and rushed NED and FRA, I wanted to get some divisions to INS and Vietnam.
Took more than a month for them to sail there 😆
Same with playing as SOV and wanting to put armies on the border in the east.
A full month of trains to go from ~Minsk to ~Vladivostok 🥲
So yeah, I feel ya! 😆
What I like about these games is that you can explain the effect of certain mistakes, and how to fix them. I do see a pattern here in these save games: Germany is always the final opponent ;-)
any situation can be a teachable moment!
I have never had a problem with Germany(ok, maybe once as Yugoslavia), what difficulty level do people usually play? I choose third one as the neutral one without debuffs and buffs. But I noticed that most of the mistakes I learned to avoid myself, since I rarely watch HoI4 videos but play it a lot when I have some free time
No radio's was the biggest mistake, no radio's then attacking Germany who has natural reinforcement ability and many boosters from doctrine, generals, chief of staff, chief of army etc etc etc. You can compensate not controlling the skies with indigenous AA in all divisions and building AA in Frontline and Industrial provinces, but you cant neglect radios against a victorious AI Germany.
Moral of the story: don't betray your ally, if you don't have balls.
Moral of the story. Don’t betray your allies’ balls
Its where the pee is stored after all
What about the PP gain?
Just make 500 2 width cavalry (or infantry) set it to garrison all the German core territory, then declare war on someone they guarantee or someone in their faction (like Hungary or Romania, will not work if they are puppets)
@@wholsom1003 ah yes Taureor's "Order 66" tactic
*GLORIA FORTIS MILES*
*ADVERSOR ET ADMORSUS*
THE BOAR AGAINST THE EAGLE!
Looking for this comment haha
GLORIE FORTIS MILES
THE WEHRMACHT CLOSING IN
ADVERSOR ET ADMORSUS
THE BOAR AGAINST THE EAGLE
*epic instrumental intensifies*
Yes, please do a Part II!
My playstile: Here are the most advanced CAS and Fighters you will ever see! And this guy: "Planes? Never heard of them!" :D
I think lots of people just don't realize how extreme the buffs/debuffs from green air can be.
@@cm01 The game never really communicates this until you really start clicking and mousing over in your combat reports.
@@DeathEatsCurry yep I remember when I first learned how important it was as my maginot line was fucking leveled by strat bombers and my man power drained rapidly from CAS
I've gotten to where I use heavy fighters, tactical bombers, and scout planes myself. Not sure if that's optimal but a lot of factions have a research company with a bonus for those three and they seem to be versatile enough and I like versatility (and just attaching air wings to generals so that I don't have to micro as much).
@@Negetive2digit tact bombers are pretty nice and can really help patch holes if you can’t focus on strat bombers or CAS
I'm expecting Belgian waffle domination by the end of this
And french fries eh! French fries are Belgian
The biggest disaster has to be that even two years later, Belgium still hasn't received a proper focus tree. Ffs, we got Latam focus trees and one for Aussa before Belgium.
ok but tanna tuva focus tree when??
Please make a part 2. This was a fantastic video and I learned a lot. I really enjoyed watching your resilience and the way that you did not get discouraged by the losses and the dire looking nature of the scenario at times. Thank you, you have inspired me to go back to some of my own save games and make adjustments to my strategy. Also build some air :)
@Bitt3rSteel at 21:10 your units count as encircled cause your ports both count to the north sea tile, which isn't defended by your fleet. So Germany is intercepting all your supply on sea.
Relating to Sabaton? I like it.
I Find it Honestly Amazing how much Air is generally Neglected by people, I would argue its the most important factor, You will struggle to do anything without air and with complete air dominance you will be able to do a good amount with just 10/0s, even offensively.
Excellent job as always. Loved the repeated rants about the lack of planes. I always find it weird that people who clearly like HoI4 enough to watch youtube vids about it make basic mistakes like not building air/terrible templates etc. Also gotta say I love the way you used your tanks in the end. Not gonna lie watching you draw up some of those huge plans for mass encirclements I had visions of you getting yourself trapped and overrun. Pocketing 3-4 enemies divisions at a time might not be as fun as nabbing their entire army in one go, but it's a hell of a lot safer, especially when you stand to be hurt so badly by losing your entire army. Now time for me to give it a go and see if I can find a way to take out the Germans as well.
Even weirder the person knows stuff like puppeting for navy, and put a lot of effort into it, but somehow refused to research fighters
If I had to guess, he kept putting the plane upgrades on the to do list then looked up and it was 1942 and he said “oh shit” and emailed the save.
In the end it's all about playstyle. I just do 7-2 for my entire army even as minor, skip planes and tanks and it works. Whereas Bitt3r prefers 40 width for doing small pushes and garbage infantry to hold the rest. The consequences are that while Bitt3r usually has 10-15 factories for infantry equipment and even less on artillery and rest on planes, I got like 30-40 factories on artillery, in late game maybe even 50+. The same goes for infantry equipment.
"Loved the repeated rants about the lack of planes."
Look very carefully at the image in 27:55
now maybe my eyes are tricking me but I can clearly read "2246 undeployed fighters"
he had the planes, he just didn't use them for whatever reason
Literally garbage. The low tier planes were being killed 30:1 so I stopped bothering
If I ever submit one of these for bitter to play it would be as soon as a war starts
Yeah I would love to see part 2 of this… the fight, it was wonderful and it must be the final showdown against the German Reich. We must see it.
Sure would be sweet to watch the fall of Berlin to the Chinese army... 😝
the units won't cover the tile near florence because of the spearhead order, they will advance to the furthest point in the frontline towards their spearhead.
good catch!
Great video. You were really pushed to your limits. I'd love to see part 2 if you fancy making it.
Disaster saves have come a long way in the past 2 years
A part two would be greatly appreciated.
I know the hospitals are considered borderline noob traps but imagine that campaign with like half of the casualties.
Ah, a sabaton refrebce always a good one.
Just a question to bitt3r, do ya like sabaton since if you do, hell yeah.
Hell yeah
@@Bitt3rSteel Hell yeah
Hell yeah
hell yeah
@@Bitt3rSteel Hell yeah
you completely forgot that war support increases atk and def on core territory, did you?
Well 70% of the front was not core …
54:52 Belgian Raj is planning a rebellion.
Je maakte er uiteindelijk een Westromeins Rijk van! Mooi gedaan verder.
French fries ?
No Belgian fries please
SPAA can help your armor with enemy air, and requires much less research intensive than planes if you have to fix it late game
Of course you gotta do part 2. Though, I suspect this save was intentionally sabotaged. ;)
Imagine being the guy that submitted this and seeing comments saying it's so bad it's gotta be intentionally sabotaged. That's rough lol
@@cm01 I mean, you can have a row of good luck, but still make some mistakes such as bad logistics, overextending, staying behind in some technology, not calculating the following months, bad manoeuvres and getting your divisions encircles, etc. I suffered all that, but staying behind for so long with interwar fighters, getting outproduced by the Axis but somehow he then managed to conquer France, Spain and the British Empire? Sure buddy, like you sabotaged your own game to get a "save disaster campaign".
Wouldn’t mind a part 2 to this. Gonna be a long campaign against Germany but satisfying in the end.
I wanna see more. I didnt think you could do it. I wanna see you go all the way
lets see a part two of this game... love your disaster saves
did anyone notice that Germany now leaves always Poland with one province
Yeah. That's zaolzie from Czechoslovakia. It's given to Poland after sudetenland focus and it's not a core of Poland.
It does become a core of Poland, if I remember right. It's just never claimed by Germany so they don't give a damn about it.
This one was so hard. I tried to keep as much cores as possible but they constantly attacked me. Could never get air dominance. But after invading Italy, it went well. I consider play it again with repeating invasions of North Italy, encircling all divisions on the Alpes front, then fall back again. Rinse and repeat until Germany is out of divisions. Cheesy, I know, but I will try :)
When an enemy is pinning you to move troops into a tile you want to defend/hold, you can break the pin by attacking another tile behind them. If the path goes through the tile where the divisions are pinning you/moving troops, it will attack anyways and stop the troops from moving. This can be very useful, especially when the game won't let you attack.
You could have used this at 17:20 to counter-pin the troops walking into nice and stop their reinforcement.
1:03:47 this is because of the spearhead order, it makes them wanna concetrate in an area and push there ignoring the flanks. shouldn't be used on its own, should put infantry to follow up
He said Bologna the right way. Best content creator.
Bolonya?
@@ahmadtarek7763 boloña
love the disaster saves. Great quality stuff. Thanks!
I'd def watch a p2. this was a fun one by virtue of being hard-fought!
bittersteel: *always tries his best to pronounce city names in their native tongue*
also bittersteel: *pronounces dutch city names with an american accent*
which is hilarious because Dutch is his native tongue
@@aidenbooksmith2351
I thought he was Belgian
@@jaredjosephsongheng372 He is. He's from Flanders, Northern Belgium, so he speaks Flemish, a dialect of Dutch.
my dude why are your pronunciations ON POINT
mayks me jelus
Can’t wait for you to do my Spain save from the 1950s😅 Sorry about sending that mess to you, I kept trying to save it and got as far as invading denmark but german air is just insane.
1:04:00 This is because you are using a Spearhead maneuver. They will pile on near the Spearhead starting point, this is because you made a 1 tile Spearhead order as well.
Additionally, when you have shit air/fighters, don't bother trying to do air superiority. Just do interception that way you can at least disrupt the CAS somewhat while minimizing your losses.
that was amazing how you saved it, im new to the game and i will never skip air superiority :D
Playing HOI4 while ignoring the air game... honestly, if anyone's gonna play like that then they should cut their losses and switch to EU4 instead.
"You're not supposed to attack with infantry anyway"
PRC-Human-Wave strategy: "And I took that personally"
Not even 10 minutes in watching and already spotted that germany did let poland stay alive in Zaolzie and is surrounding it with divisions...
Hoi4 AI in a nutshell
xD
If there are no ideas for streaming you can stream disaster save games as sufering
a fellow man of metal
I WANT TO see a part two
Guess who just wasted 1 hour of their time for this
Please do a part 2, Germany still looks very strong
I got the game neglected air my first game and now I won’t stop making new air stuff in every game as modern and optimized as possible
The reason why your tanks wont stay to defend that one tile in Italy is because you had a spearhead attack order set up. if you change that to a regular attack order the units will cover the entire front line
Oh shit you are from Belgium, I just realised after watching so many videos of yours 😅
Loved it, you got a new sub :) (si ya know if you wanna make a second part...)
Stay tuned ;)
:D
a part 2 would certainly be cool to see
You are very good at sounding disappointed
It worked, well done! Hard to say you did anything wrong in the face of success. Since the air war had been lost, I think you should have focused on naval bombers and possibly strat bombers to damage mils and infrastructure. Naval unit are just too vulnerable to air.
@Bitt3rSteel Only thing I am thinking about is looking at the production licences of your puppets, might even release the UK. Yes it will cost you factories but you can take their licences for free meaning free fighter 2 design straight at the beginning of this safe. Would have helped you SO MUCH.
Your welcome ;)
lets see the part 2 :D id love to see it! :D
nobody got the sabaton title reference im ashamed of this community
Would there have been a possibility of dissolving the Bulgarian Empire faction and joining the Allies instead, to draw them into the war with Germany and reinforce your lines with US troops, or was there something like ideology preventing that?
Ideology almost certainly.
And caused world tension makes it harder to join democratic factions
Quick question:
How do disaster saves work? I’m talking about how do people send you their saves?
In the description, he has a business email for you to send him your saves.
You have my vote for pt2 anyway.
The Begian Empire is a pretty simple thing. Since he took over France, Spain, and the UK, he took over their colonies in the peace deal.
Two major lessons:
1) Air Power is absolutely king. It decides everything unless you're actually a God, and even then it's so important it's not even funny.
2) Naval invade behind your enemy for maximum cheese.
I played my first 5-600 hours without any air, still won most of my campaigns bar a few. I wouldn't say it decides EVERYTHING but yeah it's amazing
air is nothing if you have aa for eternity never really bothered with air except naval and tac bombers
Bitt3rSteal: just saved a run by a naval invasion and pointing out that planes are important
me: Never uses Planes and doesn't even know how to do Naval invasions cause I have no idea how to get naval superiority but I still beat the soviets with only infanterie with artillerie =0
Not sure how you managed that! Fair play
Any up-to-date guides you would recommend? I find that no matter who I play or what I do, I am always behind on production. Because of that, I almost have no room for air production. I see people with all these factories and I'm like, "when would I have built all of this?" Maybe I am switching templates too early too?
I want to see a second part! :D
On this episode of HoI4 Disaster Saves:
"WHY, WHY FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DID YOU NOT DO AIR!?!!?" x34.
I vote for "Part Deux: The Great Waffle strikes back!"
do a part 2 finishing Germany
wait, ur a fellow belgian? awesome
ITD BE CRAZY IF BELGIUM WAS REAL
Did you ever do a part 2 on this save?
Nah, i had to replace the SSD and lost those alder saves
@@Bitt3rSteel right on thanks for the reply
compared to my games, usually I'm running out of airports and leasing out old planes to friendly countries (puppets) to flood the skys
Love these vids
Show us part II bro 👍
Nice
screw it im out im too dumb at least you shown me that there is no hope of me figuring this crap out thanks.
something tells me bittersteel likes planes
you havent mastered the art of infantry only defense. its tough, but when your generals are leveled up and you go grand battleplan, 10/0 with enough support cant be moved. mostly...
Please more contry and achievement video
soon, just waiting for the next patch
@@Bitt3rSteel thanks dude
I've noticed you say that transports are pointless several times in videos, but then I've also seen you lament a lack of supply stopping your spearheads and naval invasions too. I think that you might be dismissing one of your tools without realizing that you have a use for it. I know how much you love your armor to keep pushing and vital pockets that can hold out as distractions.
this video predates the supply changes. Before NSB, the air supply mechanic was literally useless
We take up arms and fight!
WE, WE WILL RESIST AND BITE
BITE HARD, CAUSE WE ARE ALL IN SIGHT
@@Skorch1356 WE, WE TAKE UP ARMS AND FIGHT! FIGHT HARD, RESIST AND DO WHAT'S RIGHT!
When will we get a pt 2????
About 50 min I'm just thinking abuse the f out of the ai in the NL plains to encircle and overrun
not a bad plan
hey , im also from Belgium , i would like to see Belgium conquer the world . im going to try this too myself
We- we will resist and bite
This is crazy
Waiting for 342 days to submarine snorchel but no army researches and asking why my armies losing? Lol
........i look at this....and im just confused. if you have enough anti air, than planes do nothing. i think the problem in the end was (and that confused) that the units that italy fought were not getting any strength back. i remember colonial units being bugged....then again, this was long ago and the Systems are now different. might be wrong about this one.
Sabaton reference in title?
The Belgen endsieg
AI Germany is OP. I always aim for them first if I’m not playing them in the game.
@@MundaneThingsBackwards I’ve played the game enough times. I’m just saying that it would behoove many to go after Germany early on so you have no one else stopping you.
Me who plays without air and has defeat Germany without taking a million casualties be like: weak.
Make a part 2 please
Vive la Belgique!
I didn't know Bitt3rSteel was Belgian.