I'll be honest. I put field hospitals on everything because I feel like a complete monster if I don't. Like, what, are my commanders just supposed to say "sorry guys, your treatable wounds are fatal now because top brass wanted to put support artillery in and we only have five slots"?
I feel the same way lmao. But I don't think It's quite like that. Afaik field hospitals represent proper triage centers/hospitals right behind the lines. Even if you dont have field hospitals, your units still have field medics and, ostensibly, personal medikits for the individual soldier.
People look over how effective F.H.'s maintain/grow division experience. Typically the only way to get veteran status experience on a division is through constant dug in defense. But with F.H.'s your units can reach that level attacking regardless of losses.
I usually put field hospitals on my divisions especially if I'm playing the US, Soviets, etc., because it reduces the amount of war support you lose due to casualties, I know there's a decision to get it back up, but it takes time and can cripple you if you're ever struggling with WS. Also, just the reduction in division experience loss can be massive, effectively letting your divisions level up faster increasing their combat effectiveness.
US I can maybe see a benefit because as a democracy it’s harder to maintain war support but with Soviet manpower and war support modifiers you def don’t need them as soviets ever.
You are gonna take to many casualites and reducing experince as long as you dont batteplan or get clicked and their is so mutch better alternativs that it is neither worth it stat wise or cost effective
@@therealpooperandpee-er even if you somehow have 100% air superiority in every zone and your units are completely immune to enemy CAS (unlikely…) the piercing alone from AA more than makes it worth it especially in single player against the AI
No cause supply and encirclements would prevent this. It helps prevents smaller death stacks but putting your entire army in one tile wouldn't work even without cw.
@@Kattalanonyt Supply got reworked in no step back. Before while you couldn't put the WHOLE army on one tile combat width was definitely the limiting factor rather than your civs
@@SerialElfYT I know, im talking about now. Ive played since 2016 but even then huge armies would attrition massively on one tile(in the bad zones) but it would have been much more possible back then.
One thing you forgot: Infrastructure also gives local supplies. Not much but it is measurable. So you an store more divisions in that region before you have to rely on your train system.
As a recon soldier, I can say that mot/mech recon gives movement bonuses because we are trained to classify grade, width, and curvature of roads, along with the capacity of bridges and the depth/speed of low water passes, to determine the best locations for our brigade's vehicles to maneuver through.
Naval bombers definitely. Naval CAS sacrifices damage vs ship for CAS potential but never in your life will some 50 carrier CAS planes make a difference plus you have shore bombing anyway I do 50% carrier fighters 50% carrier naval bombers because not having carrier fighters may bring a very bad ending. But even 20% fighters 80% naval bombers is a good idea if you have good naval AA Then there's USA with their crap naval bombers, maybe then naval CAS is worth it
THANK YOU! After playing hoi4 for 600+ hours I finally get what combat width is now, the way you explained. It was just so simple and good, it feels as if my brain had an eureka moment finally getting to know what it is. Cuz I always wondered, why the hell are most of my divisions in reserve and only like one or 2 in actual combat? Now i get it! And yes I know that I may seem pretty crazy right now but it has been annoying me for so long not knowing what combat width was and not knowing how to design a good template, thank you feedback!
Although I understood combat width near straight away I totally understand, paradox games seem to have a way of keeping you learning well into the thousands of hours of gametime.
@@eruenethiistar4976 Having SPQR as your PFP while also having pro Israel stuff on your profile is so ironic... go look up Bar Kokhba revolt and Emperor Hadrian XD
In addition to tactical strikes on key front line tiles, nukes are useful for hammering major enemy airbases to give you a leg up in the air war at least on single player. The AI likes to deathstack most of its air force over one or two air zones, and you can whittle them down by pasting the airports around the periphery.
strategic bomber are as they are called strategic, you can use them to destroy railways bottlenecks and ports to cripple the ennemy supplies, also usefull on forts as long as they are not on a montain
I appreciate how you take such an analytical approach to this game. What I think many people don't understand is that essentially, HOI4 is a math game.
Super agree with the Cavalry! They're super good and fun early in the game, but they get no bonuses in miost of the doctrines, so as the game gets later and later, your benefits are taken away
Strategic Bombers are actually very good at shooting down enemy fighters. Of course if enemy has proper design to shoot down bombers it won't work, but people usually make designs good at killing fighters and cas rather than huge planes, it's just more cost/efective so if you make like 200 strat bombers with good self defence capabilities and put them over the frontline you can get some juicy ammount of kills.
5:20 If an entire allies Nation focuses on strategic bombers it can wreck the German economy in less than half a year. I've never had a game where 1000 strat bombers haven't resulted in a guaranteed win in multi-player as most players don't know how to counter it.
Strategic bombers being dismally inefficient compared to its industrial cost is highly historical. You can spam ungodly numbers of CAS and fighters to both support your naval landings tactically, and destroy enemy supplies with supply strike, at the same time, which is what they did historically in 1944. They could have done it much earlier if they had used all that industrial capacity that they squandered on Strat bombers.
An addendum about combat width: the combat width of your division does not contribute that much to the division's effectiveness. You are better off finding the HP/Org balance that best suits you. High HP = lower losses. Low HP, High Org Stacking = longer time in battle = more damage dealt and more damage taken I personally do the following: Offensive Spearheads: 30W Defensive Unit: 20W Garrison Unit: 12W If you want to roll the AI, all you need to do to win is fill more combat width than the other side. Once both sides have filled combat width, only then does HOI4 become an interesting contest of which side has more (attack + defense) per combat width
The only scenario, where I see strategic bombing viable is when you want to cheese Siberia as Tannu Tuva. You get about 5% war score from strategic bombing, you don't have to do any offensives and can just hold.
What about strategic bombers with a lots of turrets? They are easy to intercept, but small interceptors cannot shoot them down, but only themselves fall from return fire)
I love watching these videos because it's fun to see the content creators having fun with their knowledge of the game. I can't play games like HOI4, I suck so much that I loose against normal AI in single player - but I will still watch videos because they can feel fun to watch.
I'm (relatively) new to the game and I find a lot of success making stacked moto divisions as opposed to printing out cheap infantry. I really like seeing funny truck number go up.
Don't field hospitals also reduce war support loss on casualties? The percentage of troops saved gives no loss to war support. For example, 1936 field hospitals (lvl 1) give 20% trickle back, and thus 20 % less penalty to war support from casualties. Also, saved troops are returned to their units with the same rank (experience) that they left it in, reducing the overall rank loss. Losing a lot of troops makes divisions rapidly lose rank, which gives a reduction to attack and defence, so in a way, you could say that field hospitals indirectly give your divisions free DMG/DEF.
I would challenge the infrastructure idea. If you're in civilian economy the penalty to build civs or mils is 50%. There's no penalty to build infrastructure. For UK you can build a few areas to 100% and the few months it takes super early game can take you till you move to partial mobilization. Then there's no penalties and the speed bonuses will catch you up and also allow you to stay on free trade longer as you'll have more resources.
I believe in some mods, like Kaiserreich, Cavalry fully benefit from doctrines, making them pretty useful, especially if your country has a bonus to them.
Italy and Ethiopia also get ways to keep on fighting after a capitulation and the focus tree to suplement it. (On Italy's case, it's kinda weird however)
I like Armored Cars for Suppression. Have a dedicated Suppression template of Cavalry to start the game. Start changing the Horse units over to Armor Car as production allows.
I actually like and use armored cars in my armored divisions (as recon) bc they add more breakthrough, and the upgraded versions are even better, like 50 breakthrough just from armored cars
I just got done doing Luxembourg and much of the stuff you said here I agree. I went full calvary, defense, CAS, and railway guns. Fortified and after about 2 years of defense was able to start pushing and flip to offensive templates. Railway guns are awesome and add some nice stats.
My question would be the production points meaning. Obviously more production points more time and resources will be needed, but I've never seen any guide (or maybe I forgot or something) anything to give me any sort of frame of reference for what is a lot or not or what to expect if I see whatever number in the unit designer.
You have already won by 1943, that's if, and that's a big if, you decide to play as a major or intermediate power. But when your most played countries are: 1. Tannu Tuva 2. Finland 3. Denmark 4. Montenegro 5. Luxembourg 6. Slovakia Victory is not assured by 1943. 1953 with most sure, but as Slovakia for example, it'll take for ages to get anything done. Unless you use exploits for manpower.
Strategic bombing won't be good until paradox buffs it by causing civilian casualties when strategic bombing. That ultimately reduces the manpower nation can field.
Having enemy spies in your territory reduces your entrenchment and planning bonus by a lot. Does the intel benefit from recon play into that? Like, does it counter enemy intel-networks, and does it reduce the enemy's entrenchment/planning bonus?
just want to add a little known tidbit about nukes, in multiplayer settings nukes are SCARY effective when used on... *enemy airports*!!!! planes tend to be some of the most expensive pieces of equipment, so nuking a fully staffed lvl 10 airfield can literally turn the tide of the air war
I disagree on the strat bomber one. Hit the railways, the supply depots and your enemy suffers. Sure it can be repaired against but you will (depending on the rail network degrade the hubs by atleast 1 or 2 lvls -> significantly reducing supply and depending on the front give the enemy either moderate combat debuffs or make moderate debuffs a lot worse and inflict attrition and prevent full reorging. Even with a comparativly small amount of strats
Something I find really good about Tank Destroyers is they only require half the amount per battalion as regular tanks this makes them really good I find as France because you can make a medium or heavy tank destroyer with lots of armor and put a battalion in your infantry division and the Germans won't be able to pierce them making stalling the Germans out much easier.
Railway guns and their bonuses are pretty gnarly. I remember during a Barborossa Russia actually had about three of them deployed in southern Belarus and Ukraine. They really hit my ability to push quite hard and brought me to a stalemate in the south. Well, micro at Sevastopol and the Baltics stretched them thin enough to encircle, but when supported they can be quite the force.
I like adding recon to all my divisions because it allows my defensive tactics to be weighted towards counters, and it allows my offensive tactics to avoid being countered (If my tank guy rolls blitz when I want breakthrough)
"Motorised has good suppression?" Well, when a riot starts, you want half-trucks full of grunts able to get there ASAP, instead of organising marching formations :D
Area def on port is brutaly broken. You can have enough divisions to cover all costline and AI will still leave places unguardet to reinforce battle happening like right next to it. Even if you actualy winning thet fight with divisions already there from the begining.
It's It's worth mentioning that AA and anti tank divisions only add 1 combat width. I use an anti air and anti tank division in my main infantry template. For me it's partially for realism and also the actual bennafit.
Railway Guns are incredible, but so expensive in terms of production and research and resources. But once you have them, oh my its hard to play without them. Only downside strategically is they can't keep up with rapid deep offensives due to rail networks either not being built or needing to be converted to your nation's standards - but they can really get an offensive off to a good start by smashing the front lines, breaking enemy divisions so you can just chain break or overrun them and then have effective free reign behind the lines while your line infantry mops up whatever is left. And yeah, they mince forts - especially if supporting divisions with heavy tanks or a siege expert general using their special planning ability. I broke the Maginot Line in 1937 with very little trouble in my current game (which is a very weird 'historical' setting game - France fell to Germany and the UK was so timid I still managed to take everything else without them declaring war until Poland, where I had already set up a naval invasion on the French coast and Britain fell before Poland did, effectively defeating the Allies in 1939).
Tank Destroyers with cannons are surprisingly good - and cheap. I use them to bulk out armoured divisions early on, and they bring a good mix of soft and hard attack. Good all rounders, just don't field them on their own.
Say Dave, I'd love to see a vid from you about ship designs/fleet & task force compositions. I know navy isn't really your bag, but I'm trying to learn and enjoy as many aspects of this game as I can, and I'd welcome your viewpoints. Saw a vid from 71Cloak suggesting building mainly unarmored and upgunned heavy cruisers; tried that, but I have a hard time believing that catch-all works for every situation. Cheers.
Something not mentioned here that's a huge factor in these questions is your situation/nation. For example, as Germany you will end up with a lot more military factories than some1 like Greece. With that in mind as Germany you can afford more to have a few factories making things like AA or strategic bombers.
if you are fighting alot of countries and you have a small manpower poll and you get enough foreign equipment from maintenance companies then field hospitals are 100% worth it you take half the casualties that you normally would and you lose less war support
Not sure if it still does this, it did last I used nukes, so I'll assume it still works- nuking an airfield immediately destroys the planes stationed there, and since the AI tends to spread out a lot of planes in all sorts of places, getting air superiority on one specific area and eliminating the airfield really dumps on their capability to fight back in the air. Silly little thing for nuke spamming.
thing is with strat bombing, even IRL they werent that good. IIRC there was ONE reported incident of a bomber actually hitting a factory. IRL benefit of strat bombing is entirely based on the fear that it instills in the populace
KR Russia has Pavel Shatilov as a Cavalry Genius in high command which gives +15% attack and 10% defense (might be inverted). They also get a cossack ataman minister for more attack and defense
20 line for full infantry and 21 with one artillery, the full infantry its better, more defense more organization and you win more xp because the fight last long. To add the artillery it will cost two more military factories, so I better use one factory in AAA, or Planes or Tank and the other in trucks.
use recon if your division has lots of arillery liek 40W marine but dont use it on reguler infantry, Recon increases the soft attack by percentage of artillery
you ons said if your airattack in a division is... high the ai will stop using cas in this region how many divisions must have this or will one in one airzone if in combat also do?
Nukes are also very good at knocking out their supply centers. One nuke does full damage to their supply centers...railroad tracks and their infrastructure!
I destroyed Italy with Yugoslavia with calvery 20 width and support shovels anti air and artillery. They fell apart in the North. And in Croatia. Albania I held. Was so surprised how strunk calvary was in in 1937
Here's another one: do citations/medals assigned to a division officer carry over/apply their effect after promoting to general or field marshall? from what i've seen no but i would like confirmation since i have not been able to find any information about it or anyone discussing it
the medals remain with the division. they are only useful to generals as xp boosters, effectively giving him a higher level or close to it. As far as im aware no other stats carry over from the division command
Once as Canada I used 12 Motorized Divisions to land in Morocco, and drive to Tunisia so fast the AI couldn't respond. Turned the tide of the war by making the Axis lose in Africa. They were winning up to that point.
Gotta disagree about strat bombers being bad. True they’re not good at destroying industry unless you doomstack. But what I use them for is purely to attack enemy logistics and air power, and it’s really effective. Start off targeting enemy AA and airfields exclusively to cripple them, then switch targeting to railroads, supply hubs, infrastructure, ports. If you’re hoping to blitz the enemy rear then only target railroads since they’re quick to repair and you can keep the speed buffs from infrastructure This also has the side effect of forcing the enemy to choose between having crazy attrition or always having their civ factories repairing logistics
@@FeedbackIRL I won’t lie, I definitely haven’t crunched the numbers to say if it’s truly meta or not. I also haven’t played since the plane designer was added so idk if there’s a more IC efficient way to achieve the same effect. But I honestly don’t know if it’s really possible to quantify the utility of strat bombing in the way I described. They don’t directly counter an enemy on a tactical level. Rather I see them in two ways: 1. In the short term as a tool to dictate tempo and control initiative at an operational level. 2. In the long term as a tool to destroy an enemy’s economy (without needing to directly target the factories) Strat bombing does also let you save IC elsewhere. You can almost think of strat bombing railways and supply hubs as a buff to your own divisions, especially on defence. You end up fighting enemies that are basically always suffering from significant attrition, and are often missing large amounts of equipment. On top of that you cripple an enemy’s ability to shift forces to react to new threats, especially if you also target infrastructure(albeit at the cost of slowing your own divisions once they push in). Given that most people take dispersed industry, using strat bombers in the way they were used irl (bombing factories) is pointless. I think a lot of people try bombing factories, see how little damage they do, and write them off. But they do truly massive damage to just about anything else. In my experience if you throw 1-200 at a relatively unprotected air region, it only takes a week or two max to cripple the rail network. It’s a similar timeframe for infrastructure, silos, refineries, ports, hubs, etc. as long as you don’t put too many things on the targeting list at once. And given the range of Strat bombers you can easily rotate your bombers around whenever the enemy reacts with interceptors. Also on the topic of targeting infrastructure, they’re also incredible at denying the enemy production inputs. Use spies to identify enemy supply constraints: 1. If they’re importing target the railroads. If they’re producing or the imports are from another belligerent then… 2. Target infrastructure in the area the resources come from. For example, Germany is heavily supply constrained on everything except steel and aluminum. Target their chromium and tungsten and you can cripple their tank production. Target their synthetic refineries and you cripple their ability to make trucks and planes. Add in silos and infrastructure in Romania and now they’re running out of fuel. Tbh their aluminum production isn’t that great anyway, blow that up and now they’ll struggle to even produce support equipment. Even better, those same spies that helped you pick your targets can also foment resistance and perform sabotage, which can actually destroy the factories that the bombers can’t touch. So ultimately for me, I’m not super concerned about direct cost effectiveness of building strat bombers. They derive their value from the more intangible ability they grant to control the initiative. You force your enemy to always react to you, forcing them into tough choices about where to best use a steadily shrinking pool of resources.
i always put armoured recon in my divisions but never know if it's worth while, it has always been a bit costly though, so mabey i should move over to motorised recon if i want to continue using recon
I just got back into hoi4, and I have some catching up to do in terms of DLC, so maybe I should stick to hoi4 videos of a few years past? 😁 I'm not paying full price for all those DLCs, so let's hope it doesn't take too many years for the price to drop!
Hopefully someone can answer this would it be better to switch all your aircraft to just attack supply lines/ logistics instead of providing CAS.. would taking out railways and logistic hubs be better overall to diminish supply in a region to push the enemy back
Does no one else have WWIII starting soon after end of the war with UK or USSR attacking each other's middle East puppets everygame? (Historical, allies WWII victory)
I think you need to start making Strat Bombers early. Get about 4 to 500 by the time you're ready to use them. Also make sure you have at least 300 fighters to escort them. More if you can afford it. Then use the strategic air doctrine. It is strong. You can also do logistic strikes just like with convoys you can over time destroy all of their trucks and trains killing their logistics and forcing them to use their mills to replace their lost trucks and trains taking away from their ability to make more guns and artilary. It's a game of attrition not something you will instantly notice a difference from. Think of it as playing the long game so you really need to still focus on everything else you would in a normal game.
This strategy is precisely what I used when I fought 2 gigantic factions at once, (in kaiserreich mod), I played against the reichspakt and the entente and they outnumbered me by a factor of atleast 1-20, I had no hope of doing much so I basically nuked their airfields as soon as the war started (was very late game, ~1955) so I can have air superiority then I bombed the hell out of their AA and kept their airfields down and just demolished their entire economy that way. When I finally capitulated one of the majors I saw they had so many repairs needed that it basically would take me longer than I was willing to play to finish so lol I gave up repairing.
They’re better than horses in the desert due to better combat and movement modifiers. They are not really worth it anywhere else because they use more guns for no real benefit
he said with area defense the games ai will auto try to repel the landed invasion, he had it set to port only so will they defend with only that or does the coastline option need selected as well or will units move off your ports to attack the coastline landings in his example?
So as someone who likes do dump my industry into spy agencies to RP in single player, are those worth it? I know collab governments and ciphers can be huge but is any other part of it even good?
I'll be honest. I put field hospitals on everything because I feel like a complete monster if I don't. Like, what, are my commanders just supposed to say "sorry guys, your treatable wounds are fatal now because top brass wanted to put support artillery in and we only have five slots"?
"Smug Sense of Moral Superiority"
I feel the same way lmao. But I don't think It's quite like that. Afaik field hospitals represent proper triage centers/hospitals right behind the lines. Even if you dont have field hospitals, your units still have field medics and, ostensibly, personal medikits for the individual soldier.
People look over how effective F.H.'s maintain/grow division experience. Typically the only way to get veteran status experience on a division is through constant dug in defense. But with F.H.'s your units can reach that level attacking regardless of losses.
Realistically you would have all the support companies but 🤷♂️
@@Snake.007 yeah, they really should up the limit to like 10 SCs. There is a mod for that but it really should be built in
I usually put field hospitals on my divisions especially if I'm playing the US, Soviets, etc., because it reduces the amount of war support you lose due to casualties, I know there's a decision to get it back up, but it takes time and can cripple you if you're ever struggling with WS. Also, just the reduction in division experience loss can be massive, effectively letting your divisions level up faster increasing their combat effectiveness.
They're so expensive though...
@TumblinTrouble if you have production issues as the US or the USSR you need to improve your Macro.
@@jjquinn295 Its not that, is that you could spend that production on something better
US I can maybe see a benefit because as a democracy it’s harder to maintain war support but with Soviet manpower and war support modifiers you def don’t need them as soviets ever.
You are gonna take to many casualites and reducing experince as long as you dont batteplan or get clicked and their is so mutch better alternativs that it is neither worth it stat wise or cost effective
I'm very disappointed in Feedback for skipping and not answering the most important question:
HOI4 Israel
Hoi4 Israel world conquest
NEIN
israel worst country ever
change my mind
@@ilburrito0059 Wouldn't be too difficult, they have sand-eating barbarians that they've already decisively defeated in a war on their border.
@@kidfox3971 Poor b8
@@metaltrombone549 When the bait is 100% true though... is it still bait?
Wait, people think AA is bad? That's news to me
Ok
yepp, anti artillery is horrid
I've found especially as Russia it will shred through the German air force, and it's not hard to make a lot of it with little cost
If you focus heavily on planes it's completely useless
@@therealpooperandpee-er even if you somehow have 100% air superiority in every zone and your units are completely immune to enemy CAS (unlikely…) the piercing alone from AA more than makes it worth it especially in single player against the AI
Another perspective:
Q: "What is combat width?"
A: "Combat width is HoI4's game mechanic to prevent 'death stacking' "
Why didn't the AI get the memo then?
No cause supply and encirclements would prevent this. It helps prevents smaller death stacks but putting your entire army in one tile wouldn't work even without cw.
@@Kattalanonyt Supply got reworked in no step back. Before while you couldn't put the WHOLE army on one tile combat width was definitely the limiting factor rather than your civs
@@SerialElfYT I know, im talking about now. Ive played since 2016 but even then huge armies would attrition massively on one tile(in the bad zones) but it would have been much more possible back then.
whats a "death stacking"?
One thing you forgot: Infrastructure also gives local supplies. Not much but it is measurable. So you an store more divisions in that region before you have to rely on your train system.
it also allows for more supply brought to divisions from the supply zones, the same way trucks do
I mean it is pretty noticeable on the German-Soviet front which often has poor infrastructure which tends to leads to supply issues for both sides.
Infrastructures also reduce the chance of mud occurence.
真的，新的供應效果讓他的意義更不明顯
但是當地的補給依舊十分重要...尤其是你的大部隊需要穿越這已經被打爛成千川百孔的地區
As a recon soldier, I can say that mot/mech recon gives movement bonuses because we are trained to classify grade, width, and curvature of roads, along with the capacity of bridges and the depth/speed of low water passes, to determine the best locations for our brigade's vehicles to maneuver through.
I think the carrier plane question was more of which type of carrier plane, like fighters or cas or naval bombers.
Naval bombers definitely. Naval CAS sacrifices damage vs ship for CAS potential but never in your life will some 50 carrier CAS planes make a difference plus you have shore bombing anyway
I do 50% carrier fighters 50% carrier naval bombers because not having carrier fighters may bring a very bad ending. But even 20% fighters 80% naval bombers is a good idea if you have good naval AA
Then there's USA with their crap naval bombers, maybe then naval CAS is worth it
THANK YOU! After playing hoi4 for 600+ hours I finally get what combat width is now, the way you explained. It was just so simple and good, it feels as if my brain had an eureka moment finally getting to know what it is. Cuz I always wondered, why the hell are most of my divisions in reserve and only like one or 2 in actual combat? Now i get it! And yes I know that I may seem pretty crazy right now but it has been annoying me for so long not knowing what combat width was and not knowing how to design a good template, thank you feedback!
Although I understood combat width near straight away I totally understand, paradox games seem to have a way of keeping you learning well into the thousands of hours of gametime.
@@tommyt4259 Maybe its intended? Since understanding something after a long time is a relatively good feeling.
@@Mmat2016 agreed
I can't believe he didn't answer the most popular question,
HOI4 Israel?
"So guys, I'm not gonna answer this question cause I don't support an apartheid state"
@@aciduzzo stand with Israel, f palestine
@@eruenethiistar4976 Having SPQR as your PFP while also having pro Israel stuff on your profile is so ironic... go look up Bar Kokhba revolt and Emperor Hadrian XD
@@Gallic_Gabagool yeah, I’m aware thanks anyway though
@@eruenethiistar4976 You like stealing people's homes?
At 12:30 he changed the channel mentioned ,when recording he said bittersteel but then chat told him that bittersteel uses tanks lol.
In addition to tactical strikes on key front line tiles, nukes are useful for hammering major enemy airbases to give you a leg up in the air war at least on single player. The AI likes to deathstack most of its air force over one or two air zones, and you can whittle them down by pasting the airports around the periphery.
Dropped more then 100 nukes on USA nothing changed
I had a game as imperial germany and was struggling to win air war in usa, by nuking airbases it would give me a window to push
strategic bomber are as they are called strategic, you can use them to destroy railways bottlenecks and ports to cripple the ennemy supplies, also usefull on forts as long as they are not on a montain
I appreciate how you take such an analytical approach to this game. What I think many people don't understand is that essentially, HOI4 is a math game.
Super agree with the Cavalry! They're super good and fun early in the game, but they get no bonuses in miost of the doctrines, so as the game gets later and later, your benefits are taken away
Strategic Bombers are actually very good at shooting down enemy fighters. Of course if enemy has proper design to shoot down bombers it won't work, but people usually make designs good at killing fighters and cas rather than huge planes, it's just more cost/efective so if you make like 200 strat bombers with good self defence capabilities and put them over the frontline you can get some juicy ammount of kills.
5:20 If an entire allies Nation focuses on strategic bombers it can wreck the German economy in less than half a year. I've never had a game where 1000 strat bombers haven't resulted in a guaranteed win in multi-player as most players don't know how to counter it.
When CAS is king, you should naturally assume AA is queen
If I have enough research slots I usually research anti tank just for the anti tank cannon module for my CAS.
Strategic bombers being dismally inefficient compared to its industrial cost is highly historical.
You can spam ungodly numbers of CAS and fighters to both support your naval landings tactically, and destroy enemy supplies with supply strike, at the same time, which is what they did historically in 1944.
They could have done it much earlier if they had used all that industrial capacity that they squandered on Strat bombers.
I always go Tank Destroyers on Romania cuz they get buffs for it which are pretty good
An addendum about combat width: the combat width of your division does not contribute that much to the division's effectiveness. You are better off finding the HP/Org balance that best suits you. High HP = lower losses. Low HP, High Org Stacking = longer time in battle = more damage dealt and more damage taken
I personally do the following:
Offensive Spearheads: 30W
Defensive Unit: 20W
Garrison Unit: 12W
If you want to roll the AI, all you need to do to win is fill more combat width than the other side. Once both sides have filled combat width, only then does HOI4 become an interesting contest of which side has more (attack + defense) per combat width
The only scenario, where I see strategic bombing viable is when you want to cheese Siberia as Tannu Tuva.
You get about 5% war score from strategic bombing, you don't have to do any offensives and can just hold.
What about strategic bombers with a lots of turrets? They are easy to intercept, but small interceptors cannot shoot them down, but only themselves fall from return fire)
I love watching these videos because it's fun to see the content creators having fun with their knowledge of the game. I can't play games like HOI4, I suck so much that I loose against normal AI in single player - but I will still watch videos because they can feel fun to watch.
I'm (relatively) new to the game and I find a lot of success making stacked moto divisions as opposed to printing out cheap infantry. I really like seeing funny truck number go up.
Don't field hospitals also reduce war support loss on casualties? The percentage of troops saved gives no loss to war support. For example, 1936 field hospitals (lvl 1) give 20% trickle back, and thus 20 % less penalty to war support from casualties.
Also, saved troops are returned to their units with the same rank (experience) that they left it in, reducing the overall rank loss. Losing a lot of troops makes divisions rapidly lose rank, which gives a reduction to attack and defence, so in a way, you could say that field hospitals indirectly give your divisions free DMG/DEF.
I would challenge the infrastructure idea. If you're in civilian economy the penalty to build civs or mils is 50%. There's no penalty to build infrastructure. For UK you can build a few areas to 100% and the few months it takes super early game can take you till you move to partial mobilization. Then there's no penalties and the speed bonuses will catch you up and also allow you to stay on free trade longer as you'll have more resources.
The speed bonus from infrastructure is still usually not worth it since you don't build your factories in states with 0% infrastructure.
You should do a video ranking AI division templates, specifically the majors, since everyone else builds the same thing.
I believe in some mods, like Kaiserreich, Cavalry fully benefit from doctrines, making them pretty useful, especially if your country has a bonus to them.
Italy and Ethiopia also get ways to keep on fighting after a capitulation and the focus tree to suplement it. (On Italy's case, it's kinda weird however)
I like Armored Cars for Suppression. Have a dedicated Suppression template of Cavalry to start the game.
Start changing the Horse units over to Armor Car as production allows.
I actually like and use armored cars in my armored divisions (as recon) bc they add more breakthrough, and the upgraded versions are even better, like 50 breakthrough just from armored cars
Cossack King with his 40 width cavalry with motor recon for extra zoom zoom.
I just got done doing Luxembourg and much of the stuff you said here I agree. I went full calvary, defense, CAS, and railway guns. Fortified and after about 2 years of defense was able to start pushing and flip to offensive templates. Railway guns are awesome and add some nice stats.
Playing Old World Blues has made me fall in love with field Hospitals
They're only good in that particular mod, because manpower is so low across the board (if you're not playing NCR or Legion).
My question would be the production points meaning. Obviously more production points more time and resources will be needed, but I've never seen any guide (or maybe I forgot or something) anything to give me any sort of frame of reference for what is a lot or not or what to expect if I see whatever number in the unit designer.
That was a fun informative video. Cheers!
You have already won by 1943, that's if, and that's a big if, you decide to play as a major or intermediate power.
But when your most played countries are:
1. Tannu Tuva
2. Finland
3. Denmark
4. Montenegro
5. Luxembourg
6. Slovakia
Victory is not assured by 1943. 1953 with most sure, but as Slovakia for example, it'll take for ages to get anything done. Unless you use exploits for manpower.
Do you need help, self harm isn´t a solution, please seek help. Life can be great, don´t throw it away.
@@Velatus5978 I'm having quite aa lot of fun, actually.
@@Tommuli_Haudankaivaja I think thats a coping mechanismem or paradox took you as a hostage and forces you to write say that 😂
@@Velatus5978 Mechanism*
I don't know what to cope for though, per chance it is my lack of sex lately.
@@Tommuli_Haudankaivaja ok then just the normal hoi4 player experience :)
Strategic bombing won't be good until paradox buffs it by causing civilian casualties when strategic bombing. That ultimately reduces the manpower nation can field.
Having enemy spies in your territory reduces your entrenchment and planning bonus by a lot. Does the intel benefit from recon play into that? Like, does it counter enemy intel-networks, and does it reduce the enemy's entrenchment/planning bonus?
just want to add a little known tidbit about nukes, in multiplayer settings nukes are SCARY effective when used on... *enemy airports*!!!!
planes tend to be some of the most expensive pieces of equipment, so nuking a fully staffed lvl 10 airfield can literally turn the tide of the air war
I disagree on the strat bomber one.
Hit the railways, the supply depots and your enemy suffers. Sure it can be repaired against but you will (depending on the rail network degrade the hubs by atleast 1 or 2 lvls -> significantly reducing supply and depending on the front give the enemy either moderate combat debuffs or make moderate debuffs a lot worse and inflict attrition and prevent full reorging. Even with a comparativly small amount of strats
Something I find really good about Tank Destroyers is they only require half the amount per battalion as regular tanks this makes them really good I find as France because you can make a medium or heavy tank destroyer with lots of armor and put a battalion in your infantry division and the Germans won't be able to pierce them making stalling the Germans out much easier.
Railway guns and their bonuses are pretty gnarly. I remember during a Barborossa Russia actually had about three of them deployed in southern Belarus and Ukraine. They really hit my ability to push quite hard and brought me to a stalemate in the south. Well, micro at Sevastopol and the Baltics stretched them thin enough to encircle, but when supported they can be quite the force.
So what planes are best to put on carriers? 50/50 split for fighter/nav bomber?
Yeah, cas planes are only to support ground forces
I like adding recon to all my divisions because it allows my defensive tactics to be weighted towards counters, and it allows my offensive tactics to avoid being countered (If my tank guy rolls blitz when I want breakthrough)
"Motorised has good suppression?"
Well, when a riot starts, you want half-trucks full of grunts able to get there ASAP, instead of organising marching formations :D
Area def on port is brutaly broken. You can have enough divisions to cover all costline and AI will still leave places unguardet to reinforce battle happening like right next to it. Even if you actualy winning thet fight with divisions already there from the begining.
It's It's worth mentioning that AA and anti tank divisions only add 1 combat width. I use an anti air and anti tank division in my main infantry template. For me it's partially for realism and also the actual bennafit.
There is one thing, nukes are MOST effective bombing airfields. You can wipe out 1000-2000 planes witha bomb. Secondly, yes, use it to nuke divisions.
I never really knew what mobilization speed truly did. I'd always see some stats listed and if it's green I guess it's doing something good.
Railway Guns are incredible, but so expensive in terms of production and research and resources. But once you have them, oh my its hard to play without them. Only downside strategically is they can't keep up with rapid deep offensives due to rail networks either not being built or needing to be converted to your nation's standards - but they can really get an offensive off to a good start by smashing the front lines, breaking enemy divisions so you can just chain break or overrun them and then have effective free reign behind the lines while your line infantry mops up whatever is left.
And yeah, they mince forts - especially if supporting divisions with heavy tanks or a siege expert general using their special planning ability. I broke the Maginot Line in 1937 with very little trouble in my current game (which is a very weird 'historical' setting game - France fell to Germany and the UK was so timid I still managed to take everything else without them declaring war until Poland, where I had already set up a naval invasion on the French coast and Britain fell before Poland did, effectively defeating the Allies in 1939).
Tank Destroyers with cannons are surprisingly good - and cheap. I use them to bulk out armoured divisions early on, and they bring a good mix of soft and hard attack. Good all rounders, just don't field them on their own.
Say Dave, I'd love to see a vid from you about ship designs/fleet & task force compositions. I know navy isn't really your bag, but I'm trying to learn and enjoy as many aspects of this game as I can, and I'd welcome your viewpoints. Saw a vid from 71Cloak suggesting building mainly unarmored and upgunned heavy cruisers; tried that, but I have a hard time believing that catch-all works for every situation. Cheers.
Thank you man
You have made me wanna sink 400 Hours into the game one more time
Something not mentioned here that's a huge factor in these questions is your situation/nation. For example, as Germany you will end up with a lot more military factories than some1 like Greece. With that in mind as Germany you can afford more to have a few factories making things like AA or strategic bombers.
if you are fighting alot of countries and you have a small manpower poll and you get enough foreign equipment from maintenance companies then field hospitals are 100% worth it you take half the casualties that you normally would and you lose less war support
Not sure if it still does this, it did last I used nukes, so I'll assume it still works- nuking an airfield immediately destroys the planes stationed there, and since the AI tends to spread out a lot of planes in all sorts of places, getting air superiority on one specific area and eliminating the airfield really dumps on their capability to fight back in the air. Silly little thing for nuke spamming.
thing is with strat bombing, even IRL they werent that good. IIRC there was ONE reported incident of a bomber actually hitting a factory. IRL benefit of strat bombing is entirely based on the fear that it instills in the populace
KR Russia has Pavel Shatilov as a Cavalry Genius in high command which gives +15% attack and 10% defense (might be inverted). They also get a cossack ataman minister for more attack and defense
I use AT mainly in Kaiserreich Russia because I focus on CAS and 30 width infantry with Artillery and AA and AT support.
Question: is 20 or 21 width good? or is there a better width somewhere around 20? I'm not a fan of 40 widths
20 line for full infantry and 21 with one artillery, the full infantry its better, more defense more organization and you win more xp because the fight last long. To add the artillery it will cost two more military factories, so I better use one factory in AAA, or Planes or Tank and the other in trucks.
use recon if your division has lots of arillery liek 40W marine but dont use it on reguler infantry, Recon increases the soft attack by percentage of artillery
you ons said if your airattack in a division is... high the ai will stop using cas in this region how many divisions must have this or will one in one airzone if in combat also do?
I really wanted to know Hoi 4 Israel, but you skipped it 😢
yes. you can make israel by releasing it as uk
Do a video analysing the AI division templates and how to counter them
Nukes are also very good at knocking out their supply centers. One nuke does full damage to their supply centers...railroad tracks and their infrastructure!
Very good these types of videos, I'm really learning a lot with your advice 👍
bro resolved 95% of my cuestions and 5% that is not my cuestion, Thanks
Loved this! as a beginner these tips are really useful, hope to see more QnA videos in the future.
I destroyed Italy with Yugoslavia with calvery 20 width and support shovels anti air and artillery. They fell apart in the North. And in Croatia. Albania I held. Was so surprised how strunk calvary was in in 1937
Here's another one: do citations/medals assigned to a division officer carry over/apply their effect after promoting to general or field marshall? from what i've seen no but i would like confirmation since i have not been able to find any information about it or anyone discussing it
Alas, no. Its just flavour at that stage.
the medals remain with the division. they are only useful to generals as xp boosters, effectively giving him a higher level or close to it. As far as im aware no other stats carry over from the division command
Once as Canada I used 12 Motorized Divisions to land in Morocco, and drive to Tunisia so fast the AI couldn't respond. Turned the tide of the war by making the Axis lose in Africa. They were winning up to that point.
Gotta disagree about strat bombers being bad. True they’re not good at destroying industry unless you doomstack. But what I use them for is purely to attack enemy logistics and air power, and it’s really effective.
Start off targeting enemy AA and airfields exclusively to cripple them, then switch targeting to railroads, supply hubs, infrastructure, ports. If you’re hoping to blitz the enemy rear then only target railroads since they’re quick to repair and you can keep the speed buffs from infrastructure
This also has the side effect of forcing the enemy to choose between having crazy attrition or always having their civ factories repairing logistics
Hardest part is gauging the cost effectiveness of a plane that only does IC damage. Where combat effectivenss is easier to see
@@FeedbackIRL I won’t lie, I definitely haven’t crunched the numbers to say if it’s truly meta or not. I also haven’t played since the plane designer was added so idk if there’s a more IC efficient way to achieve the same effect. But I honestly don’t know if it’s really possible to quantify the utility of strat bombing in the way I described. They don’t directly counter an enemy on a tactical level. Rather I see them in two ways:
1. In the short term as a tool to dictate tempo and control initiative at an operational level.
2. In the long term as a tool to destroy an enemy’s economy (without needing to directly target the factories)
Strat bombing does also let you save IC elsewhere. You can almost think of strat bombing railways and supply hubs as a buff to your own divisions, especially on defence. You end up fighting enemies that are basically always suffering from significant attrition, and are often missing large amounts of equipment. On top of that you cripple an enemy’s ability to shift forces to react to new threats, especially if you also target infrastructure(albeit at the cost of slowing your own divisions once they push in).
Given that most people take dispersed industry, using strat bombers in the way they were used irl (bombing factories) is pointless. I think a lot of people try bombing factories, see how little damage they do, and write them off. But they do truly massive damage to just about anything else. In my experience if you throw 1-200 at a relatively unprotected air region, it only takes a week or two max to cripple the rail network. It’s a similar timeframe for infrastructure, silos, refineries, ports, hubs, etc. as long as you don’t put too many things on the targeting list at once. And given the range of Strat bombers you can easily rotate your bombers around whenever the enemy reacts with interceptors.
Also on the topic of targeting infrastructure, they’re also incredible at denying the enemy production inputs. Use spies to identify enemy supply constraints:
1. If they’re importing target the railroads. If they’re producing or the imports are from another belligerent then…
2. Target infrastructure in the area the resources come from.
For example, Germany is heavily supply constrained on everything except steel and aluminum. Target their chromium and tungsten and you can cripple their tank production. Target their synthetic refineries and you cripple their ability to make trucks and planes. Add in silos and infrastructure in Romania and now they’re running out of fuel. Tbh their aluminum production isn’t that great anyway, blow that up and now they’ll struggle to even produce support equipment. Even better, those same spies that helped you pick your targets can also foment resistance and perform sabotage, which can actually destroy the factories that the bombers can’t touch.
So ultimately for me, I’m not super concerned about direct cost effectiveness of building strat bombers. They derive their value from the more intangible ability they grant to control the initiative. You force your enemy to always react to you, forcing them into tough choices about where to best use a steadily shrinking pool of resources.
You could do a sorta Cold War thing after ww2
This was great as usual and appreciated!
I use strategic bombers only when playing as either the US, the UK or the USSR.
i always put armoured recon in my divisions but never know if it's worth while, it has always been a bit costly though, so mabey i should move over to motorised recon if i want to continue using recon
I found this far more useful than a lot of guides
Strategic bombing is absolutely amazing in multiplayer, additionally they're hilarious
Funny enough a horse build with pope italy is insanely easy to stack a hilarious amount of buffs. Even the pope buffs them 🙏
I just got back into hoi4, and I have some catching up to do in terms of DLC, so maybe I should stick to hoi4 videos of a few years past? 😁
I'm not paying full price for all those DLCs, so let's hope it doesn't take too many years for the price to drop!
I didn't even notice they changed its name from garrsion order.
Hopefully someone can answer this
would it be better to switch all your aircraft to just attack supply lines/ logistics
instead of providing CAS.. would taking out railways and logistic hubs be better overall to diminish supply in a region to push the enemy back
I didn't know until now that garrison order changed to area defense
Does no one else have WWIII starting soon after end of the war with UK or USSR attacking each other's middle East puppets everygame? (Historical, allies WWII victory)
I think you need to start making Strat Bombers early. Get about 4 to 500 by the time you're ready to use them. Also make sure you have at least 300 fighters to escort them. More if you can afford it. Then use the strategic air doctrine. It is strong. You can also do logistic strikes just like with convoys you can over time destroy all of their trucks and trains killing their logistics and forcing them to use their mills to replace their lost trucks and trains taking away from their ability to make more guns and artilary. It's a game of attrition not something you will instantly notice a difference from. Think of it as playing the long game so you really need to still focus on everything else you would in a normal game.
This strategy is precisely what I used when I fought 2 gigantic factions at once, (in kaiserreich mod), I played against the reichspakt and the entente and they outnumbered me by a factor of atleast 1-20, I had no hope of doing much so I basically nuked their airfields as soon as the war started (was very late game, ~1955) so I can have air superiority then I bombed the hell out of their AA and kept their airfields down and just demolished their entire economy that way.
When I finally capitulated one of the majors I saw they had so many repairs needed that it basically would take me longer than I was willing to play to finish so lol I gave up repairing.
Israel
no.
Roman province of Judea.
@@fourlamb1 i approve It only because i'm italian
@Luca Zanon
I approve you, only because you're Italian.
@@LowSkillSurvival It was called Judea before the romans smh
Need a video on Camels & Camelry units & whether they're better than horses or not. Since UK& France start with camel tech
They’re better than horses in the desert due to better combat and movement modifiers. They are not really worth it anywhere else because they use more guns for no real benefit
Nukes are great when you play super late-game and the AI has like 20 divisions per tile.
Loved your videos there were 2 things i learned tonight though one was small cause i didnt read something :)
I have a question! What is the best design for tank planes and ships?
Can you please do one for yahoo?
He ignored Israel
Paradox Does not give you the Czech tanks when you take over Czechoslovakia
Infrastructure also increases local supply!
Motorized Recon = Red Paint.
RED MAKES THING GO FASTA!! WAAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHH!!!!!!!
irl armies are scared to get nuked themselves or just civilians?
he said with area defense the games ai will auto try to repel the landed invasion, he had it set to port only so will they defend with only that or does the coastline option need selected as well or will units move off your ports to attack the coastline landings in his example?
They'll attack anything in the designated area, but poorly.
Sometimes units move off the ports which can leave them open to capture.
So as someone who likes do dump my industry into spy agencies to RP in single player, are those worth it? I know collab governments and ciphers can be huge but is any other part of it even good?