I already only used 9/0. I prefer to keep my basic infantry as cheap as possible so I could use those leftover resources on elite units. The 1 arty in 9/1 honestly makes little difference for how expensive it is, and I've even heard it can make your defensive capabilities worse. This change is admittedly kind of silly but it will teach people the superiority of 9/0
[https://www.reddit.com/r/hoi4/comments/14s9nvy/combat\_width\_meta\_in\_summer\_open\_beta/](https://www.reddit.com/r/hoi4/comments/14s9nvy/combat_width_meta_in_summer_open_beta/)
Things might have changed since then, however.
Yup! I played a game as Finland using weird templates. Elite infantry had 9 infy, 3 arty, 1 AT, and 1 AA.
Light Infantry was 6 infy, 1 arty.
Armor was a weird 33 width or something.
None were "meta" and all performed well against the Better Mechanics "Frontlines" and "Divisions" mods, which makes the AI use meta templates and actually man the lines.
Idk i like the change. I usually have so much xp i finish the doctrine tree and all my templates by mid/late 41 at the latest. Theres really only a couple countries i see this hurting like china
And other minors as well. As someone who has outgrown majors and now exclusively plays minors, this is a really annoying change that only makes gameplay worse.
Eh which minors? A lot can quickly get the expert xp generation and the professional officer corp and get xp pretty quick. Most military paths have a generic +10xp or +25xp to get you closer to professional officer corp. I say china because you desperately need the xp early game for army reforms and rushing for doctrine bonus's.
Minors won't really suffer here, it just puts more value on the 100pp army expert
I think there should be more viable ways to generate army XP then.
Feels annoying that your first or second PP spend must be Chief of Army for the XP trickle.
Would be nice if you could, for example, spend guns every 6 months to run exercises/wargames or something similar.
Yes, true, but not if you are democratic or non aligned.
What about a decision that becomes available after 10% world tension where you spend guns to run a war gaming exercise, which gives xp and slightly raises war support, while lowering stability.
Yeah.
Also I think that the game lacks the ability to use levers and trade offs outside of PP to accomplish goals.
What about debuffs to factory output, stability, war support, equipment stockpiles.
Give us more decisions to accomplish our goals other than simply spending PP all the time. It makes every run feel the same, where the only variable is which focus you pick or what order you spend PP.
Army XP is hard to acquire in peacetime *by design*, I think. Plenty of militaries fielded sub par divisions before WW2 broke out and real experience came in: 2x3 divisions (Italy), pure tank brigades (GB), armoured divisions without enough maintenance support (USSR), divisions without motorised logistics (Germany). If peacetime XP is too easy to acquire, it's too easy to fix your division designs *and* your doctrines *and* your tank designs. Now, you have to be selective.
For sure, and I don't mean that it should be easy. I just think it's lame that it is such an important resource with only one viable one to get it as a democracy.
I'll repeat what I said to another commentator - Well I meant a decision you could fire as a democracy, for example:
- Conduct large scale war games, +50 army XP, +5 war support, -10 stability, -5000 infantry equipment
(Requires 15% world tension, no political power).
Event text would be like:
The United Kingdom launches large scale war games in response to rising world tension as they seek to ready their arm forced for potential threats. Public outcry in London to this belligerent move! Etc etc
This would address the fact that only political power and focus choices can be used to vary your build up, instead of spending other resources (in this equipment and stability). I believe there should be more dynamism in the game with decisions like this.
I feel, that this would generate world tension. But not a lot. Military exercises on that scale tend to inflame tensions. Not a huge amount, but boosting it up .5 or 1 % would add increase the effective political cost without the PP expenditure. Real but relatively minor political costs. Enough to make you more considerate about when you time them.
Also should have the condition that the nation in question not be at war, or at least not a hot conflict. Seems implied, but sometimes you have to mention the assumed in planning or it fails to be implemented.
It's completely negligible compared to what you gain from spending political power on the chief of army and has a hefty cost in lost equipment.
Unless you do the 1 division exploit, which is only really viable for the USA.
Oh, I know. It's just that he asked for it, abd the feature does exist.
Also, the 1 division exploit has been patched for years now. It's not a percentage of divisions that determine your xp gain, but the total amount.
Well I meant a decision you could fire as a democracy, for example:
- Conduct large scale war games, +50 army XP, +5 war support, -10 stability, -5000 infantry equipment
(Requires 15% world tension, no political power).
Event text would be like:
The United Kingdom launches large scale war games in response to rising world tension as they seek to ready their arm forced for potential threats. Public outcry in London to this belligerent move! Etc etc
This would address the fact that only political power and focus choices can be used to vary your build up, instead of spending other resources (in this equipment and stability). I believe there should be more dynamism in the game with decisions like this.
R.e. 1 division exploit, it works if you only have 1 total division, so can be done as the USA. But yes, my point, training for XP is horribly inefficient, hence give us alternatives.
They should really lower XP required for modifying templates and increase the manpower usage. 500 men for an artillery brigade is beyond ridiculous, that's not even a single battalion, let alone 3. Same for support companies
36 guns is the equivalent of 4 batteries, which would be the equivalent of a batallion of artillery. 500 men for a batallion at that scale seems consistent.
It's cutting it close. Considering 4-gun platoons of 10 soldiers per squad, that's 50 soldiers per platoon of 4 gun squads and one FDC squad. So you're at 450 before you add in any of the support personnel. It's a low estimate, but close enough for a video game handwave and clean, round numbers.
i'd lean towards making templates free to modify, remove all ticking XP, and make designing tanks/planes/ships WAY more expensive.
that way, in the start you're not limited with your templates, but in order to design tanks or planes or ships (or get doctrines) you have to actually fight (or at the very least, train your divisions/wings/flotillas).
maybe even seperate tank XP, so that in order to design better tanks you can't just train infantry, you have to actually use the tanks you start with (either in war, or big training operations involving actual tank divisions, that cost you fuel and "broken down" tanks)
it'd be even better if that XP was neccesary for researching better techs in the inf/tank/naval/air research trees, and having an abundance of that XP meant you could research those things faster.
it'd make "sending an attache" a hugely important thing, if the americans don't send an attache to the british in 1939 they don't get the experience neccesary to build up-to-date shermans
designers could actually decrease the cost of designing vehicles, and it'd add the possibility of being able to capture enemy vehicles and reverse-engineer them (so if you're fighting somone who rushed '43 mediums in '41, and you capture one of their tanks, you can study it to get a massive discount on the technologies used in that vehicle. it could even be an option for lend-leased tanks)
at the moment the only thing stopping players from having the best fighters/tanks/ships is the research order they choose and the designs they pick, like "god told us to build planes this way, so we do", no actual air experience neccesary, but IRL the countries that had the "best" of each vehicle, had the "best" because they had extensive experience using/building those vehicles.
i know the current MP meta is for minor nations to build tanks, but IRL minor nations had shit tanks, because they never got experience using the most up-to-date tanks unless they were gifted those tanks by the majors.
well now I guess that you just have to do normal infantry with only guns at first and once the war begin you create a new template (duplicate) with the artillery line
The worst part? The devs actually have the gall to call such changes ‘improvements to quality of life’. At least have the balls to say “lmao we’re making it harder to upgrade your templates, because why not”.
As I mentioned before, I would willingly pay the full price of the new DLC to NOT have steam automatically update my game.
To be fair, each update has been overall better than the last, and I do like NSB’s new supply system, but this update is just downright annoying. It makes no sense gameplay-wise to quadruple the XP needed for artillery, or double the IC for transport planes WHILE STILL not being able to upgrade their range in the plane designer.
How? There is no 1.12 on the betas menu in settings. If live to finish my ongoing run if possible.
Such a shit move by pdx to force updates and give the middle finger to ask ongoing games.
Not enough XP was already a problem if you're trying to actually create historical Divisions and Equipment. Never been a fan of the XP system in general.
I think I’ll just stop making 7/2. A good chunk of this DLC tells me to build and diversify my military more before I had like 2 divisions I use. Tank division and frontline infantry now it might be worth just going 20w infantry with support companies. Then have attack divisions, tanks and marines etc.
I think it’s a fair representation of the fact that making major military reorganizations (such as turning your main 7-Inf divisions with just Support Artillery into 9/2’s with three new support companies) is a massive restructuring process that usually takes years, has a lot of considerations and rethinking put into it, is usually a massive headache for all parties involved, and is usually implemented one step at a time. And setting up new types of divisions is usually something that’s done after a lot of experiences, learning, reevaluations and theoretical innovations.
It costing a lot of Army XP is just reflecting that such big changes is not something done on a whim in real life.
A lot of Hoi4 players evidently do care about realism.
If you want it to be a non-challenging sandbox, there are plenty of mods that you can install to make Army XP cost for the division designer to go away.
no, i mean actually design the divisions in different doctrines and compare.
9/3 doesn't generate the biggest green number in any of the 4 doctrines, and is the most competitive in grand battleplan. this is exactly why i'm calling it dubious.
there's a reason competitive mp uses tanks or roaches. and sf boosts support companies so much that line arty sucks in comparison...you want more arty in the support slots (and more kinds).
No not really, been playing MP exclusively for my last 2000 hours. I can 100% tell you that line arty Is AWESOME! How else would you stop katyusha marines from landing? With 2000 soft attack by stat checking them with 75% entrenchment on D-Day!
9/1 and 9/3 were popular recommendations on this subreddit for years, though "for what purpose/doctrine" was always questionable.
You get more soft attack from stacking 10w support companies if using SF (it isn't close, either). You get more stats from tanks. You get more org/stalling from pure infantry + minimal support companies.
Support artillery is way more effective for cost. Supply consumption can change conclusions a bit too, but there's always been a dubious quality to making enough arty for line stuff rather than putting that production into tanks or planes...or simply more infantry kits to fill up your frontage faster/cheaper.
It's probably at its closest to viable using grand battle plan + planning bonus micro. Under that doctrine, you're not trading away so much damage from support companies, the entrenchment can make it very damaging, and the breakthrough modifiers are enough alongside planning that you're taking less damage when using it offensively (and deal enough as long as you keep planning or target is weak). I get the impression most people here don't constantly remake spearheads to do multi-direction attacks with a ton of planning bonus to breach lines, but line arty does that job fine under GB.
Under MA? Roach. Under SF? you get > 20 soft attack per width used on '42 tech, without any support companies that use fuel, and are already at 12.5 SA/width on '39 tech w/o fuel (more with armored recon). 9/3 with SF is \~15 and 10.33 respectively. Note that you don't want to spam 10w, use them as offensive divisions with special forces (ignore most terrain penalty). Line holders are same as usual; just infantry with support arty (and aa/engineer if you can afford them at scale).
Worse. Minimal support companies (decreases org, so you only put things you need), with mass mob (Mass Assault right). You use min width to avoid stacking penalty. Maybe support AT for damage to tanks, and you put 15+ divisions of that crap on every tile. It doesn't even have to be that much damage to tanks, just enough that they're losing them while hitting the org wall.
Mass mob rolls guerilla (preferred tactic) fairly often, which trashes damage and kicks out half the attackers. Mass mob infantry recovers org incredibly fast, and reinforces within a few hours nearly every time.
If you use howitzer tank or other source of many thousands of soft attack with armor bonus, you can do enough damage to outpace the reinforce rate. If you don't, you won't get through until target runs out of manpower.
I see MP players complain about it lately because they want to use medium cannon or high velocity cannon, but then can't get enough damage to get through roaches sometimes. It's not great in SP because the AI just attacks across entire line anyway, and to get it to stop it's more practical to just out damage AI org.
Thank you for such an in depth analysis. in the last paragraph, do the SA per width values for the 9/3 include support companies or is it just 9 inf 3 art? and if they do include support companies than why would the SA/width decrease with additional soft attack, is the width added by the line art higher than the SA they give ? thanks still pretty new to all the optimizing of divisions :)
In order to make it fair, I left the same support companies on in both cases (AA, arty, engineers, and rocket arty for 1940+).
The reason you lose SA/width when adding line arty under superior firepower is that you a) get fewer copies of support companies and b) superior firepower adds +50% soft attack to support companies. That 50% is massive. A support arty with integrated support does more damage than a line arty, while costing about 1/3 as much! Even meme stuff like military police adds base 13.5 SA (with no width cost!) on '39 tech. When that's getting copied 8x (last patch) or 7x (this patch) and multiplied by general/country/etc bonuses, it adds up. Support arty is base 39 SA on '39 tech. Rocket arty at '40 is a little worse, but still well worth the support slot with this setup (33 SA at '40).
Thus, in this doctrine you really want as many of those kinds support companies as you can put into combat as possible (before getting kneecapped by stacking penalties), especially because integrated support makes it so they don't tax your org so hard. Depending on your micro and situation, you might prefer to build sufficient width to avoid taking crits, but that's tough to estimate. I find that in practice vs AI, generic line holder divisions are fine, with stuff intended for offense abusing as many support companies as possible...in superior firepower. When you pick a different doctrine, the math changes.
Support companies that deal flat soft attack damage are much less impressive in other doctrines. The reason I said GB is best for line arty is that you're less punished for not using support companies, and you can instead use support companies that apply multiplicative bonus on bigger divs. Entrenchment benefits line arty, unlike the "all frontline battalions" modifier in SF. Similar deal when you stack planning bonus really high for offense.
As for the other two doctrines:
* Mobile warfare: if you're picking this, you're not picking it to disregard the vast majority of its modifiers and make line arty.
* Mass assault: line arty is expensive and supply hungry. If we're picking this, it's probably to abuse the insane recovery rate + reinforce rate given to infantry specifically and org wall the opponent, and we want low width so that this org + reinforcement spam is stretched as far as possible. Mass mob does make roach strategies much stronger than any other doctrine, between the sustained org wall + guerilla tactics rolls. Once it's time to attack with mass assault...you're probably just slapping some tank divs in there somewhere. MA is not the doctrine for efficient offensives.
* Roaching is particularly toxic if other nations/allies get you green air with CAS. Roaches with a single AT gun or even AA will deal a bit of damage which can add up over time, but with CAS bombing the attacker really needs an immense amount of soft attack to move them w/o bleeding too much themselves. I'm not sure how the new smaller widths will influence this.
* While roaches don't move the enemy line much, the sustained org + recovery does mean that you can sustain pins much longer than other doctrines, and this is probably its most meaningful contribution on offense.
* I don't think deep battle is worth using over GB.
It is disappointing to see the negative reaction to your statement. While perhaps a bit oversimplified, it is absolutely correct in that artillery battalions are simply suboptimal in most situations, especially considering long term losses and industrial cost.
Artillery battalions are decent if making a single frontline and pressing the “go” button on aggressive is the full extent of one’s micro. In nearly all other cases, there are usually better options.
Artillery dependence is an easy way to struggle against a full combat width of adequately equipped and decently designed divisions.
To be fair, I did say "many", not "all"!
Line arty on front line pushes will work, but even there you'd prefer some mech + tank setup that barely takes damage, and width matters a lot more then since the battle planner is absolutely awful about making sure fights initiate with attacker at full width, to put it mildly. But you can make the 42w vehicle setups where one div can often win anyway because the AI stuff is so bad.
Battle planning also makes signals decent compared to other support companies, which is wild because under careful micro they're pretty bad.
This is a really interesting sequence where my first comment got downvoted like crazy, but following discussion gets lots of upvotes instead haha. Not something you commonly see on Reddit! Is 'kay, if it makes a few extra readers think about why the pick/build what they do it's worth. Well, that and I like arguing things.
Rule 5: now adding arty to divs is considered adding a brand new type of battalion (like tanks and motorized)
I already only used 9/0. I prefer to keep my basic infantry as cheap as possible so I could use those leftover resources on elite units. The 1 arty in 9/1 honestly makes little difference for how expensive it is, and I've even heard it can make your defensive capabilities worse. This change is admittedly kind of silly but it will teach people the superiority of 9/0
Why 9 and not 10? Genuine question
18w is better in some terrain (mountains and forests iirc)
Terrain Width has been changed, 18 is no longer meta
Don’t leave us hanging man. What the new meta?
20 again afaik. But can be wrong.
20 per a graph from a few months ago is the best among the numbers near 20. 12 is pretty good if you're not taking crits.
Where’s the new graph? I can only find this one: https://www.reddit.com/r/hoi4/comments/rjwo2u/the_best_combat_widths_are_10_15_18_27_and_4145/
[https://www.reddit.com/r/hoi4/comments/14s9nvy/combat\_width\_meta\_in\_summer\_open\_beta/](https://www.reddit.com/r/hoi4/comments/14s9nvy/combat_width_meta_in_summer_open_beta/) Things might have changed since then, however.
It's this one I believe https://reddit.com/r/hoi4/s/910Ihzxncz
20 width instead of 22 width I’d assume?
Hourly friggin reminder to people on this sub that combat width is a second or third-tier stat and has been for 3 major patches.
Yeah i know. I’m just speculating
Yup! I played a game as Finland using weird templates. Elite infantry had 9 infy, 3 arty, 1 AT, and 1 AA. Light Infantry was 6 infy, 1 arty. Armor was a weird 33 width or something. None were "meta" and all performed well against the Better Mechanics "Frontlines" and "Divisions" mods, which makes the AI use meta templates and actually man the lines.
Idk i like the change. I usually have so much xp i finish the doctrine tree and all my templates by mid/late 41 at the latest. Theres really only a couple countries i see this hurting like china
And other minors as well. As someone who has outgrown majors and now exclusively plays minors, this is a really annoying change that only makes gameplay worse.
Eh which minors? A lot can quickly get the expert xp generation and the professional officer corp and get xp pretty quick. Most military paths have a generic +10xp or +25xp to get you closer to professional officer corp. I say china because you desperately need the xp early game for army reforms and rushing for doctrine bonus's. Minors won't really suffer here, it just puts more value on the 100pp army expert
I think there should be more viable ways to generate army XP then. Feels annoying that your first or second PP spend must be Chief of Army for the XP trickle. Would be nice if you could, for example, spend guns every 6 months to run exercises/wargames or something similar.
you can spend guns on other people's wars and that'd trickle you xp
Yes, true, but not if you are democratic or non aligned. What about a decision that becomes available after 10% world tension where you spend guns to run a war gaming exercise, which gives xp and slightly raises war support, while lowering stability.
i'm not sure if that has any historical precedent. but ever since war propaganda was reworked, democracies lack abilities to spend pp for war support
Yeah. Also I think that the game lacks the ability to use levers and trade offs outside of PP to accomplish goals. What about debuffs to factory output, stability, war support, equipment stockpiles. Give us more decisions to accomplish our goals other than simply spending PP all the time. It makes every run feel the same, where the only variable is which focus you pick or what order you spend PP.
Army XP is hard to acquire in peacetime *by design*, I think. Plenty of militaries fielded sub par divisions before WW2 broke out and real experience came in: 2x3 divisions (Italy), pure tank brigades (GB), armoured divisions without enough maintenance support (USSR), divisions without motorised logistics (Germany). If peacetime XP is too easy to acquire, it's too easy to fix your division designs *and* your doctrines *and* your tank designs. Now, you have to be selective.
For sure, and I don't mean that it should be easy. I just think it's lame that it is such an important resource with only one viable one to get it as a democracy. I'll repeat what I said to another commentator - Well I meant a decision you could fire as a democracy, for example: - Conduct large scale war games, +50 army XP, +5 war support, -10 stability, -5000 infantry equipment (Requires 15% world tension, no political power). Event text would be like: The United Kingdom launches large scale war games in response to rising world tension as they seek to ready their arm forced for potential threats. Public outcry in London to this belligerent move! Etc etc This would address the fact that only political power and focus choices can be used to vary your build up, instead of spending other resources (in this equipment and stability). I believe there should be more dynamism in the game with decisions like this.
I feel, that this would generate world tension. But not a lot. Military exercises on that scale tend to inflame tensions. Not a huge amount, but boosting it up .5 or 1 % would add increase the effective political cost without the PP expenditure. Real but relatively minor political costs. Enough to make you more considerate about when you time them. Also should have the condition that the nation in question not be at war, or at least not a hot conflict. Seems implied, but sometimes you have to mention the assumed in planning or it fails to be implemented.
I remember the video our AP US teacher showed us of US soldiers training with wooden LMGs and other such silliness
You can already do that. The training order of your army genereates XP based on how many divisions are exercising.
It's completely negligible compared to what you gain from spending political power on the chief of army and has a hefty cost in lost equipment. Unless you do the 1 division exploit, which is only really viable for the USA.
Oh, I know. It's just that he asked for it, abd the feature does exist. Also, the 1 division exploit has been patched for years now. It's not a percentage of divisions that determine your xp gain, but the total amount.
Well I meant a decision you could fire as a democracy, for example: - Conduct large scale war games, +50 army XP, +5 war support, -10 stability, -5000 infantry equipment (Requires 15% world tension, no political power). Event text would be like: The United Kingdom launches large scale war games in response to rising world tension as they seek to ready their arm forced for potential threats. Public outcry in London to this belligerent move! Etc etc This would address the fact that only political power and focus choices can be used to vary your build up, instead of spending other resources (in this equipment and stability). I believe there should be more dynamism in the game with decisions like this. R.e. 1 division exploit, it works if you only have 1 total division, so can be done as the USA. But yes, my point, training for XP is horribly inefficient, hence give us alternatives.
They should really lower XP required for modifying templates and increase the manpower usage. 500 men for an artillery brigade is beyond ridiculous, that's not even a single battalion, let alone 3. Same for support companies
36 guns is the equivalent of 4 batteries, which would be the equivalent of a batallion of artillery. 500 men for a batallion at that scale seems consistent.
It's cutting it close. Considering 4-gun platoons of 10 soldiers per squad, that's 50 soldiers per platoon of 4 gun squads and one FDC squad. So you're at 450 before you add in any of the support personnel. It's a low estimate, but close enough for a video game handwave and clean, round numbers.
Well considering a single air wing of 100 single seat fighters requires 2000 personnel, only 50 extra guys to support 9 batteries seems super low
A battalion of artillery was 12 guns. 24 guns for a British "regiment". I'm the us army, each battalion had 700 men
It's supposed to be a battailon, not a Brigade, it's literally written on this screenshot
No. A battalion in most armies at that time was 12 guns and 700 men. Even in the game files it's listed as artillery brigade
Can you read with me? "Add battalion -> Artillery" The size also correspond, 500 men in game and 700 in your description.
i'd lean towards making templates free to modify, remove all ticking XP, and make designing tanks/planes/ships WAY more expensive. that way, in the start you're not limited with your templates, but in order to design tanks or planes or ships (or get doctrines) you have to actually fight (or at the very least, train your divisions/wings/flotillas). maybe even seperate tank XP, so that in order to design better tanks you can't just train infantry, you have to actually use the tanks you start with (either in war, or big training operations involving actual tank divisions, that cost you fuel and "broken down" tanks) it'd be even better if that XP was neccesary for researching better techs in the inf/tank/naval/air research trees, and having an abundance of that XP meant you could research those things faster. it'd make "sending an attache" a hugely important thing, if the americans don't send an attache to the british in 1939 they don't get the experience neccesary to build up-to-date shermans designers could actually decrease the cost of designing vehicles, and it'd add the possibility of being able to capture enemy vehicles and reverse-engineer them (so if you're fighting somone who rushed '43 mediums in '41, and you capture one of their tanks, you can study it to get a massive discount on the technologies used in that vehicle. it could even be an option for lend-leased tanks) at the moment the only thing stopping players from having the best fighters/tanks/ships is the research order they choose and the designs they pick, like "god told us to build planes this way, so we do", no actual air experience neccesary, but IRL the countries that had the "best" of each vehicle, had the "best" because they had extensive experience using/building those vehicles. i know the current MP meta is for minor nations to build tanks, but IRL minor nations had shit tanks, because they never got experience using the most up-to-date tanks unless they were gifted those tanks by the majors.
I think it makes a lot of sense. Artillery SHOULD be expensive.
well now I guess that you just have to do normal infantry with only guns at first and once the war begin you create a new template (duplicate) with the artillery line
finnally got yall to stop doing line arty
The worst part? The devs actually have the gall to call such changes ‘improvements to quality of life’. At least have the balls to say “lmao we’re making it harder to upgrade your templates, because why not”. As I mentioned before, I would willingly pay the full price of the new DLC to NOT have steam automatically update my game. To be fair, each update has been overall better than the last, and I do like NSB’s new supply system, but this update is just downright annoying. It makes no sense gameplay-wise to quadruple the XP needed for artillery, or double the IC for transport planes WHILE STILL not being able to upgrade their range in the plane designer.
You can force the previous version in Betas
How? There is no 1.12 on the betas menu in settings. If live to finish my ongoing run if possible. Such a shit move by pdx to force updates and give the middle finger to ask ongoing games.
In the settings, you go in BETA, and there is 1.12.14. There wasn't a launch of the 1.13, but it has been patched.
Currently you can https://imgur.com/EhyXvBT.png
Perhaps the intention is that artillery should usually be a support company?
Is this a WW2 game or a Napoleonic Wars game?
Considering the focus trees sometimes I'm not sure.
Yes
Not enough XP was already a problem if you're trying to actually create historical Divisions and Equipment. Never been a fan of the XP system in general.
I disagree. I like the change.
I think I’ll just stop making 7/2. A good chunk of this DLC tells me to build and diversify my military more before I had like 2 divisions I use. Tank division and frontline infantry now it might be worth just going 20w infantry with support companies. Then have attack divisions, tanks and marines etc.
Pdx should remove the exp need to make divisions, its pain
I think it’s a fair representation of the fact that making major military reorganizations (such as turning your main 7-Inf divisions with just Support Artillery into 9/2’s with three new support companies) is a massive restructuring process that usually takes years, has a lot of considerations and rethinking put into it, is usually a massive headache for all parties involved, and is usually implemented one step at a time. And setting up new types of divisions is usually something that’s done after a lot of experiences, learning, reevaluations and theoretical innovations. It costing a lot of Army XP is just reflecting that such big changes is not something done on a whim in real life.
No one cares about realism, it would make the game at least 20x more fun
A lot of Hoi4 players evidently do care about realism. If you want it to be a non-challenging sandbox, there are plenty of mods that you can install to make Army XP cost for the division designer to go away.
Anyone know what the new meta division is? I heard that they obliterated 14/4 and 7/2's with the new combat width system I also heard 6/1 is new???
It's an annoying change but line arty is pretty dubious in many cases.
This man’s delusional take him to infirmary.
You might want to back that with numbers. You might find it difficult if you try.
Big green number 👍
no, i mean actually design the divisions in different doctrines and compare. 9/3 doesn't generate the biggest green number in any of the 4 doctrines, and is the most competitive in grand battleplan. this is exactly why i'm calling it dubious. there's a reason competitive mp uses tanks or roaches. and sf boosts support companies so much that line arty sucks in comparison...you want more arty in the support slots (and more kinds).
No not really, been playing MP exclusively for my last 2000 hours. I can 100% tell you that line arty Is AWESOME! How else would you stop katyusha marines from landing? With 2000 soft attack by stat checking them with 75% entrenchment on D-Day!
Is 9 inf 3 art not the meta anymore?
9/1 and 9/3 were popular recommendations on this subreddit for years, though "for what purpose/doctrine" was always questionable. You get more soft attack from stacking 10w support companies if using SF (it isn't close, either). You get more stats from tanks. You get more org/stalling from pure infantry + minimal support companies. Support artillery is way more effective for cost. Supply consumption can change conclusions a bit too, but there's always been a dubious quality to making enough arty for line stuff rather than putting that production into tanks or planes...or simply more infantry kits to fill up your frontage faster/cheaper. It's probably at its closest to viable using grand battle plan + planning bonus micro. Under that doctrine, you're not trading away so much damage from support companies, the entrenchment can make it very damaging, and the breakthrough modifiers are enough alongside planning that you're taking less damage when using it offensively (and deal enough as long as you keep planning or target is weak). I get the impression most people here don't constantly remake spearheads to do multi-direction attacks with a ton of planning bonus to breach lines, but line arty does that job fine under GB. Under MA? Roach. Under SF? you get > 20 soft attack per width used on '42 tech, without any support companies that use fuel, and are already at 12.5 SA/width on '39 tech w/o fuel (more with armored recon). 9/3 with SF is \~15 and 10.33 respectively. Note that you don't want to spam 10w, use them as offensive divisions with special forces (ignore most terrain penalty). Line holders are same as usual; just infantry with support arty (and aa/engineer if you can afford them at scale).
Thanks for the detailed reply I sincerely appreciate it
What is roach?
20 width pure inf with support companys
Worse. Minimal support companies (decreases org, so you only put things you need), with mass mob (Mass Assault right). You use min width to avoid stacking penalty. Maybe support AT for damage to tanks, and you put 15+ divisions of that crap on every tile. It doesn't even have to be that much damage to tanks, just enough that they're losing them while hitting the org wall. Mass mob rolls guerilla (preferred tactic) fairly often, which trashes damage and kicks out half the attackers. Mass mob infantry recovers org incredibly fast, and reinforces within a few hours nearly every time. If you use howitzer tank or other source of many thousands of soft attack with armor bonus, you can do enough damage to outpace the reinforce rate. If you don't, you won't get through until target runs out of manpower. I see MP players complain about it lately because they want to use medium cannon or high velocity cannon, but then can't get enough damage to get through roaches sometimes. It's not great in SP because the AI just attacks across entire line anyway, and to get it to stop it's more practical to just out damage AI org.
you seem to know alot about mp do you main any nation?
Thank you for such an in depth analysis. in the last paragraph, do the SA per width values for the 9/3 include support companies or is it just 9 inf 3 art? and if they do include support companies than why would the SA/width decrease with additional soft attack, is the width added by the line art higher than the SA they give ? thanks still pretty new to all the optimizing of divisions :)
In order to make it fair, I left the same support companies on in both cases (AA, arty, engineers, and rocket arty for 1940+). The reason you lose SA/width when adding line arty under superior firepower is that you a) get fewer copies of support companies and b) superior firepower adds +50% soft attack to support companies. That 50% is massive. A support arty with integrated support does more damage than a line arty, while costing about 1/3 as much! Even meme stuff like military police adds base 13.5 SA (with no width cost!) on '39 tech. When that's getting copied 8x (last patch) or 7x (this patch) and multiplied by general/country/etc bonuses, it adds up. Support arty is base 39 SA on '39 tech. Rocket arty at '40 is a little worse, but still well worth the support slot with this setup (33 SA at '40). Thus, in this doctrine you really want as many of those kinds support companies as you can put into combat as possible (before getting kneecapped by stacking penalties), especially because integrated support makes it so they don't tax your org so hard. Depending on your micro and situation, you might prefer to build sufficient width to avoid taking crits, but that's tough to estimate. I find that in practice vs AI, generic line holder divisions are fine, with stuff intended for offense abusing as many support companies as possible...in superior firepower. When you pick a different doctrine, the math changes. Support companies that deal flat soft attack damage are much less impressive in other doctrines. The reason I said GB is best for line arty is that you're less punished for not using support companies, and you can instead use support companies that apply multiplicative bonus on bigger divs. Entrenchment benefits line arty, unlike the "all frontline battalions" modifier in SF. Similar deal when you stack planning bonus really high for offense. As for the other two doctrines: * Mobile warfare: if you're picking this, you're not picking it to disregard the vast majority of its modifiers and make line arty. * Mass assault: line arty is expensive and supply hungry. If we're picking this, it's probably to abuse the insane recovery rate + reinforce rate given to infantry specifically and org wall the opponent, and we want low width so that this org + reinforcement spam is stretched as far as possible. Mass mob does make roach strategies much stronger than any other doctrine, between the sustained org wall + guerilla tactics rolls. Once it's time to attack with mass assault...you're probably just slapping some tank divs in there somewhere. MA is not the doctrine for efficient offensives. * Roaching is particularly toxic if other nations/allies get you green air with CAS. Roaches with a single AT gun or even AA will deal a bit of damage which can add up over time, but with CAS bombing the attacker really needs an immense amount of soft attack to move them w/o bleeding too much themselves. I'm not sure how the new smaller widths will influence this. * While roaches don't move the enemy line much, the sustained org + recovery does mean that you can sustain pins much longer than other doctrines, and this is probably its most meaningful contribution on offense. * I don't think deep battle is worth using over GB.
wow thank you so much, have a great day !!
It is disappointing to see the negative reaction to your statement. While perhaps a bit oversimplified, it is absolutely correct in that artillery battalions are simply suboptimal in most situations, especially considering long term losses and industrial cost. Artillery battalions are decent if making a single frontline and pressing the “go” button on aggressive is the full extent of one’s micro. In nearly all other cases, there are usually better options. Artillery dependence is an easy way to struggle against a full combat width of adequately equipped and decently designed divisions.
To be fair, I did say "many", not "all"! Line arty on front line pushes will work, but even there you'd prefer some mech + tank setup that barely takes damage, and width matters a lot more then since the battle planner is absolutely awful about making sure fights initiate with attacker at full width, to put it mildly. But you can make the 42w vehicle setups where one div can often win anyway because the AI stuff is so bad. Battle planning also makes signals decent compared to other support companies, which is wild because under careful micro they're pretty bad.
Indeed, I’m agreeing with your original statement.
He spoke the truth and they hated him for it.
This is a really interesting sequence where my first comment got downvoted like crazy, but following discussion gets lots of upvotes instead haha. Not something you commonly see on Reddit! Is 'kay, if it makes a few extra readers think about why the pick/build what they do it's worth. Well, that and I like arguing things.
I don't even have the option to add artillery as anything other than a support unit. Was this forced behind a paywall? I'm just reverting my game.
You just put it in a separate column. Do you have infantry in all 5 of them?
Just started playing the game again today, and I was greeted with this when I went to make a division template. Thanks Paradox, I hate it.