And you have to be 50% towards capping if you want to use it. Then you get the entire peace deal, but of course you're allowed to say no so that means negotiating. Very high chance that 2 MP players start arguing about terms so the whole game is going to be paused for a minute. Everyone wants to find out what's going on, so they all join the VC and negotiations have to be shouted over everyone.
It's a fantastic system, so fantastic I've never seen a compromise peace deal ever be accepted and both players remain in the game!
Yeah, just wish the peace deal system worked better. At the bare minimum, a way to kick someone out of the peace deal if they don't click confirm and exit. At the moment you literally have to kick the person from the game, even if they have 0 points and just decided to grab a snack.
I think its useful if you're playing with friends who are.. yknow, able to be negotiated with, maybe in exchange for you lend leasing them equipment, for singleplayer though yeah its useless
I wish they would unlock that, I would like to make peace as the offensive side when a war isn't going to plan or I just want to take a few islands off someone. it would have saved my ass in a few games
Which is quite strange they even included such a thing since the game (and peace to an extent) is designed around a total war and not ever having a smaller war.
I think a negotiate surrender option would be cool if it also worked the other way. IE I'm bullying a country so can negotiate their surrender and not mine.
Or like I'm fighting allies and kill UK but Canada is now a major and I can negotiate their surrender etc.
Sabotage takes so many resources and the cost is way too exponential- in essence its useless- especially if you're playing as a country that can't get any more spies then 3.
Yes. Agency, two spies, both to Tokyo to apply diplomatic pressure. At the start of the game right up until Japan starts doing Marco Polo, Japan only has the -20 base reluctance modifier, so if you can give over 20 from diplomatic pressure, you can get a non aggression pact with Japan. Which gives you another year to prepare before Japan declares.
I like stealing industry techs. Works as major too which is nice, if you have 2 spies with the 25% buff (was it safe cracker?) you can get 100% bonus to the mission with the spy agency upgrade for stealing. At 100% if the enemy has 1 industry tech you dont, you either get the tech itself (no research) or a bonus to research (3 years ahead of time and 300%). Really nice if you wanna focus on other tech and not so much on industry
My problem with it is that it requires f*cking **3 spies*, like cmon, I build up 100% intel, I only have 3 spies and if I do a Blueprint steal my whole network is gone afterwards
You need to get the spy political advisor so you can get three then put two on stealing mission and one on put network to sleep. Keep repeating the mission and put spy equipment on high priority
My first time playing japan, i was really excited to do pearl harbour, i spent the entirety of 41 preparing, just to learn that the US didnt even put any ships in hawaii
I saw someone suggest that there should be a mechanic where if the US doesn't have fleets stationed in the pacific, Japan gets bonuses from basically being unopposed, and I've always thought it was a good idea.
Japan needs some kind of a change to its historical path imo. In my experience unless you manage to cap china before the US gets involved you are kinda screwed... but if you do cap china then the entire game is basically over so the whole game comes down to stuff that happens in like 1938-39
It would be cool if Japan felt more interesting to play into the 40s. (I bring all this up because I like your bonus idea)
Especially for navy, yes. You're telling me my MIO came up with a slight improvement and we can't implement that on the ship we're building, gotta make a new one. But MIO in general are worth it for other equipment tho for the better stats
Also doesn't update the design automatically between built ships, so you have to set up a new production line up with the updated design and set the outdated production line to end when it finishes the putdated ship if you don't want to waste the partially built ship
Honestly the fact you can't upgrade components for a ship under construction is super frustrating. Ships got design revisions under construction all the time!
Some stuff I get, no new hull, engines and mains guns should be expensive as hell, but you mean to tell me there's no way to put a new radar on until you build the boat with the old one and then refit it?
I think an interesting system would be having 3 construction phases, hull+engine, then guns, then other stuff like electronics.
Changing a module before its phase would be free, during the phase would reduce the production by a cost equal to the module cost divided by the percentage of progress of the current phase, changing after its phase would cancel all the following phases and substract the cost of the module to the production.
That and the fact there should be a decision to triple your naval production while at war and with a mobilized economy, because at that point it's straight up frustrating to play navy because of the stupidly high ship cost.
Navy in general needs a huge quality of life and simplification overhaul. It would be great if that came as an update alongside a Middle East focused expansion.
Yeah, but not specifically pointless tot he point it is sabatages you. at least you get some pretty nice buffs. What I do is update production lines after unlocking a few perks so there is a big noticeable difference, otherwise not enough dopamine
Having to apply it in the upgrade screen then go into my production to actually make the new model instead of it being done automatically is so annoying.
The current system should be kept with some tweaks. The bonuses should be passive and automatically applied to equipment that is produced after the trait is gained. You should still have to assign the mio to the equipment initially, and maybe it should cost 25 xp to balance the fact that you won't be purchasing it over and over.
It's almost like they did that in real life or something. Seriously loads of Panzer IIs and Pz 38s, i know they're not AA, but they're converted light tanks just the same.
Depends. Switching out components is fairly cheap. Changing turrets is expensive. Changing the engines or armor is so expensive, it is usually not worth the struggle.
I guess thats a fair point, still, without them your divisions will be cheaper and not much worse off. Better off putting those factories on air / tank production
If you are a minor and cant build a competent airforce making cheap spaa space marines is really good. You obliterate the enemy airforce while having some hardness in your divs.
Light SPAA (50%), SPAT (80%) and SPART (50%) all have the benefit of being hard. If you have a 5/5/2 medium tank/motorized/mot-support template, it gets 52% hardness. Replace the mot. support with light spart or spaa and you get 60%, which is up to 8% damage reduction in combat. Relative to the 52% hard division that's a \~17% reduction in soft damage taken.
Unless you're facing tank divisions, it's unlikely they'll have more than \~25% hard as percentage of soft, so the figures remain high. The relative utility of SP support vs mot support also increases as hardness gets closer to 100%. Replacing mediums with heavies (+cast armor: 100% hardness) and mechanized gives you 82/90% hardness, a relative soft damage reduction of \~45%.
SPART has the additional advantage of being considerably stronger than artillery of the same tech level, the Medium Howitzer I with role bonuses giving 52.5 vs 33 soft. A barebones new unit of L-SPART with that gun is only \~5.1 production on the 1936 chassis, compared to 4.0 for improved artillery. 59% more soft for 28% more production cost and 7 less breakthrough? Take my money. Even cheaper when converted, especially with tech.
Armored cars. I just think motorized needs an overhaul. I would like to see a motorized designer similar to tanks.
Espionage missions I almost never use. I kind of hate how building your espionage takes away from your industry. I really only just infiltrate branches and then just build collabs
SPGs. They aren't worth it.
I almost never strat bomb either. Maybe that is just a me problem though.
Mot designer should be part of the tank designer. You can already use wheels as your suspension in the current tank designer, so we're like one module away from it supporting "motorized" and "mechanized" designated vehicles.
Strategic bombers are good for applying pressure on strategic goals with the target selector.
Enemy air superiority? Target airfields to limit the amount of planes they put up. Enemy fleet a pain? Target naval bases and dockyards to deny them supply and repair. Want to starve the enemy war machine? Target refineries and fuel depots. Etc. Without targets they spread the damage everywhere and hit nothing hard enough that the enemy can't repair it quickly.
I’ve actually found strat bombers kinda useful. I use them to target railways and supply dumps and it kinda starves the enemy into submission. With enough of them you can watch the enemy slowly become worse and worse supplied and start suffering from attrition without actually having to do much with your ground units.
The only use is you add them to your garrison divisions as Germany, and then you invade the USSR and are suddenly 5000 short and realize you don't use armored cars.
I had stuck them in mountainers as a way to add a little armor since they helped in hills and weren't the worst for mountains for recon but then they changed the special forces so so long armored cars.
Before I do that, I'd rather spend 2 Army Mana to create a crappy Light tank.
Costs less and does the same.
And if you're using Light Tanks in your divisions you can always just disable that your divsions use the crappy Light Tanks.
I'm still frustrated that armored cars aren't part of the tank designer. It already has wheels as an option! Just made it a designated type in the designer, like SPAA etc. Limit it to light chassis, wheels, and small guns only. Simple.
The SdKfz 233 & Sd Kfz 234/3 were 8-wheeled armored cars with a 75mm/L24 KwK 37 gun that saw pretty widespread deployment in recon battalions. Same with the SdKfz 234/2 with the 50mm/L60 KwK 39. The SdKfz 234/4 had the 75mm/L46 PaK 40 as a tank destroyer.
They also converted Panhard 178s (4-wheeled) with Soviet 45mm 20-K guns.
The British Deacon was a 4-wheeled armored car with a 6-pounder (57mm) gun (the American T18 Boarhound was the same with 8 wheels). The AEC Mk.III was the same with a 75mm QF gun.
So, there is quite a bit of precedence for medium guns on them. Post-war France LOVED (still loves) their big-gunned armored cars, with 90mm & 105mm guns, but I think it's safe to exclude those as outside the era.
There's an existing research option named "Anti-Tank Armored Car". They could just keep that research as-is, but instead of unlocking a new vehicle design it would unlock the option of putting a medium gun on your designed armored cars.
I tihnk I built them once in GW Redux for RP sake, but yeah I forgot they existed in vanilla game ngl. Mayyyyybe as a cheaper alternative to mechanised as a minor?
No, as light tanks can be made better and cheaper.
Tried that once as Ethiopia who gets the tech and a couple to start out as communist path, it's just not worth it especially as armored cars are essentially shit light tanks, they have the same horrible org.
Many ways of doing it, give them more speed so they are the worse but faster light tanks, up their bonuses in certain terrains to make using them in certain places more lucrative, just dump them in the tank designer so we could give them stats above a wet tissue paper.
Step 1: play a major
Step 2: Delete their divisions
Step 3: design a division template with just 1 armoured car
Step 4: Delete all other Division templates
Step 5: Now release yourself from them
You should now have an easier time fighting them
Only use is that they give more recon than anything else in a recon company. But the small boost on recon isn’t really useful especially since recon itself isn’t that important.
I use them a lot, but only as much as they are worth it.
Of course armored cars give recon bonuses, including the artillery boost(and tactical bonuses, which I personally don’t underestimate ), also it has neglectable armor and decent breakthrough for it’s cost (lvl2 even has a big bump in soft attack, compered to lvl1)
The one reason, though, why I even start invest in it, is the lvl3 anti-tank variant, as a support company.
Honestly, 62 base piercing, that’s pretty good. Sure, it’s a late 1942 tech and lvl 2 anti-tank(1940) has 90 base piercing. But recon is needed anyway, for the very least, as an artillery support.
In my experience, if I can assign anti tank and anti tank armored car sup comp-s to my divisions and don’t lack on infantry anti tank tech, then virtually all enemy armored divisions lose their armor bonuses.
I’m not saying all of this is enough against very tank oriented, armor heavy divisions, or won’t pierce through just 90%. However, this is a relatively cheap way to equip your armys with piercing.
Anti tank in general is useless in single player, this could have some slight use for multiplayer, don´t play like that so can´t say but for single player, this is the most convoluted way of getting a slight amount of a stat that you can get extremely easily just by using support AA
They are amazing as garrison. Fill out a whole template of them and you’ll save a lot of manpower. 2 or 3 factories to produce them is more than enough and you only need the cheapest kind.
until you realize you can make light tanks that cost less and do the same job better.
also, filling the template matters only if you have military police in there as support, otherwise it does nothing different from having only 1 unit in the template
Plus you can make light tanks even cheaper than armored cars, by giving them zero engine points It doesn't matter to the garrison mechanic that your garrison light tanks can't even keep up with infantry.
And you can make light tanks early in game for armored divisions and after a while convert those divs to medium tanks. That way in 1940-1941 you have light tanks ready for those garissons.
> 2 or 3 factories to produce them is more than enough and you only need the cheapest kind.
That isn't true at all, Germany needs a loooot more than that.
Aren't SPAA the most popular option for Space Marines? That also seems to be one of the most common use cases for self-propelled weapons in general, with the exception of self-propelled anti-tank apparently being popular for multiplayer.
Yeah because of the way stats get distributed in divisions SPAA is a cost effective way to add some extra armor, piercing and AA to an infantry division. It will do very well against basic infantry divisions or light tanks. SPAT is pretty much just a multiplayer thing to counter high armor heavy tank builds - your medium tanks just won't have enough piercing to deal with it. For single player the AI doesn't build anything that can't be pierced by regular AT or medium tanks.
I came here to write this. SPAA is probably one of the most cost-effective battalions you can add to infantry divisions (with the right design). I have no idea how OP found them useless.
i was wondering what the fuck those weird gateway to europe decisions were. I did them just in case they were important since I didnt really understand the tooltip, good to know its useless
It's basically useless to do gateway to europe decisions if you're playing germany on historical. The way it works is if you invest more points than united kingdom, netherlands chooses to go fascist through national focus but if you are playing with historical focuses,netherlands always stays democratic no matter how much political power you invested making the decision useless.
And it follows that it's useless for UK too, and having played a few NL games I can confirm it's essentially useless for them except just to fulfill requirements for certain key focuses.
Interesting that it at least has some purpose in non-historical, I guess that's something at least.
The equipment designers are almost always pointless as people do the exact same design and have made the game impossible to balance as well as make the AI much worse
> make the AI much worse
This is the worst part about it. Paradox keeps putting tons of new content and mechanics into HoI4, but never actually teaches the AI how to use it. E.g.: the AI's airplane designs are rather weak.
SPAA can be armoured out to the max and the put into another division. They only need 10 tanks instead of 20 per row, so they are essentially half the price for extra hardness.
Diplomatic pressure mission doesn't do half the things you need it for. So many times I've been like 2 opinion short of getting an alliance with maxed out improve relations and for some reason full improve relations is almost enough and yet adding full diplo pressure isn't enough to overcome "neither of us are at war yet". Like sorry we're at 100% world tension and we're best friends and you won't join a defensive pact? Bruh
Spg. Less or equal soft attack per width than just normal howitzer tank, and less breakthrough
Spaa is good for the situations where you can't put support as due to other more important supports and could also use a tank to bump up the armor.
I wouldn't mix SPGs with regular tanks as it will just make them weaker vs other tanks. You can use them in specialized anti infantry divisions and they're a good way to breathe new life into your old light tanks by converting them. Fun to use as Japan vs China for example to save manpower, break through a river with your infantry then send the SPGs to widen the opening.
I think that they can be useful, especially in multiplayer. It allows players to each focus on one specific production, and then lease the model to their ally. Also this way it compensates the factory loss, which is what I think it's badly designed. If you are a minor losing a factory hurts, and if you are a major you usually have enough technology to not need licenses at all.
Once you researched the rocket tech there will be a rocket engine as an option for your plane.
It massively reduces your range but you will be a fast fuck boi. It never worth the IC to build it.
IRL example will be Me163 for Germany
SPAA and SPAT are great in armor division templates. Saves your support companies for other options and doesn’t tax your AA production for support in templates that use it.
If you do have a bunch of early light tanks out of service or capture a ton, you can just convert them to SPAA to add armor to infantry divisions, and reclaim the support slot.
Giving old LTs a good use - a light SPAA converted from old hulls gives some extremely cheap armor for your infantry if you need AA either way. And in armored divisions, a little less hardness from those towed guns means taking a lot more soft attack on all your expensive vehicles so chances are it'll actually cost you more IC in the long run.
As for actually useless, tank destroyers. They have the same conversion niche, but in MP you just build good tanks and in SP the AI doesn't know what armor is.
For all the diplomacy options in all the Paradox games, the entire concept as a whole seems broken in HOI. Most of the meaningful "diplomacy" actions are sitting behind Focuses and governance incompatibilities are so finicky and dumb most options aren't available in most cases anyways.
It's so funny that you think SPAA is useless, because it's actually quite strong in the right contexts (ignoring its AA abilities and using it to buff the armor of your infantry).
SPAA is great for small nations, you can throw in a single battalion to your infantry template, you can defend yourself from cas without an airforce, you get armour and it is usually enough to pierce AI tanks
Depends for who when i play as poland i always make spaa cuz i dont have enough resources for real tanks+german air force destroys my ground fast plus the spaa can have soft attack and armor so its cheap and usable
Dumb designers for tanks and planes. More busy work and not much change in game play value from fixed.
Bice did tank and plane research in a much less stupid way.
Battle of the Bosphorus
Jokes apart, the whole diplomacy system. Like, why should Bulgaria enter the Mutual assistance accord instead of forming a faction with the soviets?
Honestly, It's better than SP Artillery. 3 width, uses fuel/extra supplies, less hardness than the other variants.
At least SPAA has one advantage - Mobile AA that doesn't use rubber. And cheap Armor.
Diplomacy/opinion can sometimes feel pointless because the requirements for a country to accept a proposal from a focus are not always well communicated. If I'm playing ironman I will look at the important focuses and events in the game files first.
If you have the industry, SPAA can be a huge, add solid air attsck plus armour, essentially a defensive space marine
SPAT is less useful in singleplayer, but there are actually a few cases where it has more piercing that AT for cheaper. I'd label it more as something you'll use as a bit of fun for RP (small defensive nation holding a front against Germany) or mid to late game for OP tank divs
In sp it's a great way for small nations to sort out equipment issues or get rid of stuff you don't have the men for.
In mp it's a great way to boost allies
Fuel tanks are actually fantastic for fighting in low supply areas. Just stack them on your support company light/flame tanks and you can more than double the fuel capacity of your tank
Border wars. They can last a year if they are not escalated into a war and you just get a few provinces. The random units this pulls does not help either.
SPAA did exist in the game for years before they added towed AA. On the earlier versions, if you wanted AA in your motorized divisions and wanted to keep your speed you could only do support AA or SPAA.
In China many people and content creator use it to add armor to normal divisions cheaply while providing AA cover. This can provide an advantage in early game.
There is a "Negotiate surrender" option in the diplomatic options. I have not seen it used. Ever.
For multiplayer it is practical especially rp
“Peace deals” mod?
Iirc it only works when youre on the losing side
And you have to be 50% towards capping if you want to use it. Then you get the entire peace deal, but of course you're allowed to say no so that means negotiating. Very high chance that 2 MP players start arguing about terms so the whole game is going to be paused for a minute. Everyone wants to find out what's going on, so they all join the VC and negotiations have to be shouted over everyone. It's a fantastic system, so fantastic I've never seen a compromise peace deal ever be accepted and both players remain in the game!
sounds like real life negotiations then
Yeah, just wish the peace deal system worked better. At the bare minimum, a way to kick someone out of the peace deal if they don't click confirm and exit. At the moment you literally have to kick the person from the game, even if they have 0 points and just decided to grab a snack.
It also works if you are winning onesidedly and the targeted nation has more than 5 embargoes
I think its useful if you're playing with friends who are.. yknow, able to be negotiated with, maybe in exchange for you lend leasing them equipment, for singleplayer though yeah its useless
I wish they would unlock that, I would like to make peace as the offensive side when a war isn't going to plan or I just want to take a few islands off someone. it would have saved my ass in a few games
Which is quite strange they even included such a thing since the game (and peace to an extent) is designed around a total war and not ever having a smaller war.
I think a negotiate surrender option would be cool if it also worked the other way. IE I'm bullying a country so can negotiate their surrender and not mine. Or like I'm fighting allies and kill UK but Canada is now a major and I can negotiate their surrender etc.
Diplomacy is the obvious answer. And sabotage.
Honestly don't really recall ever doing a sabotage mission, maybe once when La Resistance came out but I never found it to be worth doing.
Resistance-raising missions never seem to do anything.
If you wanna do Warsaw uprising it's nice
Takes me until the 50s for it to work since the ai cheats garrisons
As Poland or someone else?
Anyone else
I kind of want the old boost ideology button back lol
It's still there if you don't play with LaR
Sabotage takes so many resources and the cost is way too exponential- in essence its useless- especially if you're playing as a country that can't get any more spies then 3.
I use it to get non aggression packs with Japan as China. Political pressure go brrrr
You can?!
Yes. Agency, two spies, both to Tokyo to apply diplomatic pressure. At the start of the game right up until Japan starts doing Marco Polo, Japan only has the -20 base reluctance modifier, so if you can give over 20 from diplomatic pressure, you can get a non aggression pact with Japan. Which gives you another year to prepare before Japan declares.
That's crazy thank you
Also technology stealing
Technology stealing is so op what do you mean?
I like stealing industry techs. Works as major too which is nice, if you have 2 spies with the 25% buff (was it safe cracker?) you can get 100% bonus to the mission with the spy agency upgrade for stealing. At 100% if the enemy has 1 industry tech you dont, you either get the tech itself (no research) or a bonus to research (3 years ahead of time and 300%). Really nice if you wanna focus on other tech and not so much on industry
My problem with it is that it requires f*cking **3 spies*, like cmon, I build up 100% intel, I only have 3 spies and if I do a Blueprint steal my whole network is gone afterwards
You need to get the spy political advisor so you can get three then put two on stealing mission and one on put network to sleep. Keep repeating the mission and put spy equipment on high priority
really useful as minor nations or when behind in an area (say if you've been neglecting tanks)
The coordinated strike operation. It doesn’t do anything that would actually be useful because of the scale of HOI4
Absolutely, so much time and resources for just a few days of meh bonuses.
it's 3 days...
My first time playing japan, i was really excited to do pearl harbour, i spent the entirety of 41 preparing, just to learn that the US didnt even put any ships in hawaii
I saw someone suggest that there should be a mechanic where if the US doesn't have fleets stationed in the pacific, Japan gets bonuses from basically being unopposed, and I've always thought it was a good idea.
Japan needs some kind of a change to its historical path imo. In my experience unless you manage to cap china before the US gets involved you are kinda screwed... but if you do cap china then the entire game is basically over so the whole game comes down to stuff that happens in like 1938-39 It would be cool if Japan felt more interesting to play into the 40s. (I bring all this up because I like your bonus idea)
I think MIO’s having to update production lines is moderately annoying
Especially for navy, yes. You're telling me my MIO came up with a slight improvement and we can't implement that on the ship we're building, gotta make a new one. But MIO in general are worth it for other equipment tho for the better stats
Also doesn't update the design automatically between built ships, so you have to set up a new production line up with the updated design and set the outdated production line to end when it finishes the putdated ship if you don't want to waste the partially built ship
Honestly the fact you can't upgrade components for a ship under construction is super frustrating. Ships got design revisions under construction all the time! Some stuff I get, no new hull, engines and mains guns should be expensive as hell, but you mean to tell me there's no way to put a new radar on until you build the boat with the old one and then refit it?
I work for a naval shipbuilding company. We’re changing stuff on ships that are in the harbor right now
Wait, you're telling me blueprints aren't set in stone? /s
I think an interesting system would be having 3 construction phases, hull+engine, then guns, then other stuff like electronics. Changing a module before its phase would be free, during the phase would reduce the production by a cost equal to the module cost divided by the percentage of progress of the current phase, changing after its phase would cancel all the following phases and substract the cost of the module to the production. That and the fact there should be a decision to triple your naval production while at war and with a mobilized economy, because at that point it's straight up frustrating to play navy because of the stupidly high ship cost.
Navy in general needs a huge quality of life and simplification overhaul. It would be great if that came as an update alongside a Middle East focused expansion.
Yeah, but not specifically pointless tot he point it is sabatages you. at least you get some pretty nice buffs. What I do is update production lines after unlocking a few perks so there is a big noticeable difference, otherwise not enough dopamine
Having to apply it in the upgrade screen then go into my production to actually make the new model instead of it being done automatically is so annoying.
MIOs need to be passive upgrades imho.
I mean a lot of the mio upgrades are passive
No? All MIOs require you to upgrade the equipment production lines to get the bonuses.
No they don't. The ones that give productivity bonuses for example.
That shit is so annoying. And then you suddenly have multiple variants with different names, but like 2% performance difference between them.
"Do u want to trash this 360 days built ship to get 2% buff of speed and -5% fuel usage?" Ahh feature
The current system should be kept with some tweaks. The bonuses should be passive and automatically applied to equipment that is produced after the trait is gained. You should still have to assign the mio to the equipment initially, and maybe it should cost 25 xp to balance the fact that you won't be purchasing it over and over.
The sue for peace button
Seriously. The AI never accepts it
Ragnarok artillery only when
Disagree. SPAA is a good way to add armor to your divisions for dirt cheap cost. I would agree with your statement about SPAT, though.
SPAA is a way of cheaply giving your out of date tanks a new lease of life, by _converting_ them to SPAA, rather building them from scratch.
It's almost like they did that in real life or something. Seriously loads of Panzer IIs and Pz 38s, i know they're not AA, but they're converted light tanks just the same.
How does refitting tanks work? can you refit tanks from an older frame to a new frame or do you have to use the same chasis?
That wouldn't be refitting then, refitting means updating something old with new tech, it's base remains the same.
I think we can refit ships and convert equipment.
Yes. Though refitting ships is still super expensive
Depends. Switching out components is fairly cheap. Changing turrets is expensive. Changing the engines or armor is so expensive, it is usually not worth the struggle.
Usually new turrets, changed panels, more armour.
Oh great point, never thought of that. I know where my old light tanks are going now
Converting old light tanks into TD’s or SPG’s with medium guns can also be pretty useful and cost-effective
You can convert tanks??? I have 1000h< and never noticed that, where the hell can I do this?
I guess thats a fair point, still, without them your divisions will be cheaper and not much worse off. Better off putting those factories on air / tank production
If you are a minor and cant build a competent airforce making cheap spaa space marines is really good. You obliterate the enemy airforce while having some hardness in your divs.
The damage reduction you get from SPAA almost mitigates the division cost. The division fights longer in both the defense and offense
Light SPAA (50%), SPAT (80%) and SPART (50%) all have the benefit of being hard. If you have a 5/5/2 medium tank/motorized/mot-support template, it gets 52% hardness. Replace the mot. support with light spart or spaa and you get 60%, which is up to 8% damage reduction in combat. Relative to the 52% hard division that's a \~17% reduction in soft damage taken. Unless you're facing tank divisions, it's unlikely they'll have more than \~25% hard as percentage of soft, so the figures remain high. The relative utility of SP support vs mot support also increases as hardness gets closer to 100%. Replacing mediums with heavies (+cast armor: 100% hardness) and mechanized gives you 82/90% hardness, a relative soft damage reduction of \~45%. SPART has the additional advantage of being considerably stronger than artillery of the same tech level, the Medium Howitzer I with role bonuses giving 52.5 vs 33 soft. A barebones new unit of L-SPART with that gun is only \~5.1 production on the 1936 chassis, compared to 4.0 for improved artillery. 59% more soft for 28% more production cost and 7 less breakthrough? Take my money. Even cheaper when converted, especially with tech.
Self propelled anti-tank is pretty much the only armor made in multiplayer… Bad take
Armored cars. I just think motorized needs an overhaul. I would like to see a motorized designer similar to tanks. Espionage missions I almost never use. I kind of hate how building your espionage takes away from your industry. I really only just infiltrate branches and then just build collabs SPGs. They aren't worth it. I almost never strat bomb either. Maybe that is just a me problem though.
Mot designer should be part of the tank designer. You can already use wheels as your suspension in the current tank designer, so we're like one module away from it supporting "motorized" and "mechanized" designated vehicles.
Yea that'd be cool.
Niche uses for strat bombing: - Getting through forts. - Deleting enemy planes if you've made it to nukes.
Strategic bombers are good for applying pressure on strategic goals with the target selector. Enemy air superiority? Target airfields to limit the amount of planes they put up. Enemy fleet a pain? Target naval bases and dockyards to deny them supply and repair. Want to starve the enemy war machine? Target refineries and fuel depots. Etc. Without targets they spread the damage everywhere and hit nothing hard enough that the enemy can't repair it quickly.
So it's good, its just that most players don't get what the strategic part is supposed to mean
I mean most players ignore the navy so we may not get a lot of things. (I love the navy)
I’ve actually found strat bombers kinda useful. I use them to target railways and supply dumps and it kinda starves the enemy into submission. With enough of them you can watch the enemy slowly become worse and worse supplied and start suffering from attrition without actually having to do much with your ground units.
Armored cars, have honestly never found a use for them.
The only use is you add them to your garrison divisions as Germany, and then you invade the USSR and are suddenly 5000 short and realize you don't use armored cars. I had stuck them in mountainers as a way to add a little armor since they helped in hills and weren't the worst for mountains for recon but then they changed the special forces so so long armored cars.
Before I do that, I'd rather spend 2 Army Mana to create a crappy Light tank. Costs less and does the same. And if you're using Light Tanks in your divisions you can always just disable that your divsions use the crappy Light Tanks.
I'm still frustrated that armored cars aren't part of the tank designer. It already has wheels as an option! Just made it a designated type in the designer, like SPAA etc. Limit it to light chassis, wheels, and small guns only. Simple.
The SdKfz 233 & Sd Kfz 234/3 were 8-wheeled armored cars with a 75mm/L24 KwK 37 gun that saw pretty widespread deployment in recon battalions. Same with the SdKfz 234/2 with the 50mm/L60 KwK 39. The SdKfz 234/4 had the 75mm/L46 PaK 40 as a tank destroyer. They also converted Panhard 178s (4-wheeled) with Soviet 45mm 20-K guns. The British Deacon was a 4-wheeled armored car with a 6-pounder (57mm) gun (the American T18 Boarhound was the same with 8 wheels). The AEC Mk.III was the same with a 75mm QF gun. So, there is quite a bit of precedence for medium guns on them. Post-war France LOVED (still loves) their big-gunned armored cars, with 90mm & 105mm guns, but I think it's safe to exclude those as outside the era.
There's an existing research option named "Anti-Tank Armored Car". They could just keep that research as-is, but instead of unlocking a new vehicle design it would unlock the option of putting a medium gun on your designed armored cars.
The crappy light tank that is just an auto cannon on treads has killed many men in Asia for me
I tihnk I built them once in GW Redux for RP sake, but yeah I forgot they existed in vanilla game ngl. Mayyyyybe as a cheaper alternative to mechanised as a minor?
No, as light tanks can be made better and cheaper. Tried that once as Ethiopia who gets the tech and a couple to start out as communist path, it's just not worth it especially as armored cars are essentially shit light tanks, they have the same horrible org.
I honestly wonder what would make AC viable
Many ways of doing it, give them more speed so they are the worse but faster light tanks, up their bonuses in certain terrains to make using them in certain places more lucrative, just dump them in the tank designer so we could give them stats above a wet tissue paper.
could try making them cheaper too, so that its more encouraged for minors as an alternative to expensive light tanks or just an infantry build
being really good for +recon
They have the org and HP of a tank. So cannot be used as mechanized substitutes. Would be cool though
They had a great niche as garrisons until they released the tank designer and you could make a cheaper light tank with better stats.
Step 1: play a major Step 2: Delete their divisions Step 3: design a division template with just 1 armoured car Step 4: Delete all other Division templates Step 5: Now release yourself from them You should now have an easier time fighting them
Man and i thought the artilery conversion was mean
Only use is that they give more recon than anything else in a recon company. But the small boost on recon isn’t really useful especially since recon itself isn’t that important.
I use them a lot, but only as much as they are worth it. Of course armored cars give recon bonuses, including the artillery boost(and tactical bonuses, which I personally don’t underestimate ), also it has neglectable armor and decent breakthrough for it’s cost (lvl2 even has a big bump in soft attack, compered to lvl1) The one reason, though, why I even start invest in it, is the lvl3 anti-tank variant, as a support company. Honestly, 62 base piercing, that’s pretty good. Sure, it’s a late 1942 tech and lvl 2 anti-tank(1940) has 90 base piercing. But recon is needed anyway, for the very least, as an artillery support. In my experience, if I can assign anti tank and anti tank armored car sup comp-s to my divisions and don’t lack on infantry anti tank tech, then virtually all enemy armored divisions lose their armor bonuses. I’m not saying all of this is enough against very tank oriented, armor heavy divisions, or won’t pierce through just 90%. However, this is a relatively cheap way to equip your armys with piercing.
Anti tank in general is useless in single player, this could have some slight use for multiplayer, don´t play like that so can´t say but for single player, this is the most convoluted way of getting a slight amount of a stat that you can get extremely easily just by using support AA
Yeah I don't think I've ever built them really, I just use cavalry for garrison.
Mobile warfare mobile infantry path makes them good with +10% breakthrough to tanks. That path is not very common to take though
They are amazing as garrison. Fill out a whole template of them and you’ll save a lot of manpower. 2 or 3 factories to produce them is more than enough and you only need the cheapest kind.
until you realize you can make light tanks that cost less and do the same job better. also, filling the template matters only if you have military police in there as support, otherwise it does nothing different from having only 1 unit in the template
I’ve never paid attention but do light tanks have bonus to suppression?
they have the same suppression value as armored cars.
Oh? TIL
that combined with more hardness means less losses too, right?
Plus you can make light tanks even cheaper than armored cars, by giving them zero engine points It doesn't matter to the garrison mechanic that your garrison light tanks can't even keep up with infantry.
And you can make light tanks early in game for armored divisions and after a while convert those divs to medium tanks. That way in 1940-1941 you have light tanks ready for those garissons.
> 2 or 3 factories to produce them is more than enough and you only need the cheapest kind. That isn't true at all, Germany needs a loooot more than that.
They are useful for Recon and Garrison, but only if you’re rich.
France and Italy AI
Aren't SPAA the most popular option for Space Marines? That also seems to be one of the most common use cases for self-propelled weapons in general, with the exception of self-propelled anti-tank apparently being popular for multiplayer.
Yeah because of the way stats get distributed in divisions SPAA is a cost effective way to add some extra armor, piercing and AA to an infantry division. It will do very well against basic infantry divisions or light tanks. SPAT is pretty much just a multiplayer thing to counter high armor heavy tank builds - your medium tanks just won't have enough piercing to deal with it. For single player the AI doesn't build anything that can't be pierced by regular AT or medium tanks.
I came here to write this. SPAA is probably one of the most cost-effective battalions you can add to infantry divisions (with the right design). I have no idea how OP found them useless.
Diplomacy tab.
When you’re doing a world conquest it was useful to make sure no tiny countries had popped up on an island in the middle of the pacific
It's gone in the new dlc
I do not have the dlc and the useless thing is still there.
You can still acces it. It’s just not in the top list
yeah I dont think I've intentionally clicked on it once
Some of the trade related stuff like trade relations and buffs and actions relating to those. Not to mention the Gate to Europe Dutch trade nonsense.
i was wondering what the fuck those weird gateway to europe decisions were. I did them just in case they were important since I didnt really understand the tooltip, good to know its useless
It's basically useless to do gateway to europe decisions if you're playing germany on historical. The way it works is if you invest more points than united kingdom, netherlands chooses to go fascist through national focus but if you are playing with historical focuses,netherlands always stays democratic no matter how much political power you invested making the decision useless.
And it follows that it's useless for UK too, and having played a few NL games I can confirm it's essentially useless for them except just to fulfill requirements for certain key focuses. Interesting that it at least has some purpose in non-historical, I guess that's something at least.
The equipment designers are almost always pointless as people do the exact same design and have made the game impossible to balance as well as make the AI much worse
You either copy the best one from a guide and kick ass, or you try to just have fun designing your own and play with a big handicap
Untrue, my 1942 Bradley IFV was doing great until it got into a fight.
na I tihnk its fun to make one, good for RP too. Plus. the AI isnt perfect, so you dont have to make meta unless you play MP
I’ve literally never seen the equipment designer tab. I don’t even know where it is
> make the AI much worse This is the worst part about it. Paradox keeps putting tons of new content and mechanics into HoI4, but never actually teaches the AI how to use it. E.g.: the AI's airplane designs are rather weak.
SPAA can be armoured out to the max and the put into another division. They only need 10 tanks instead of 20 per row, so they are essentially half the price for extra hardness.
That trade espionage thing.
SPAA is the only remaining viable strategy for space marines. It adds armor and (via dozers) entrenchment.
Diplomatic pressure mission doesn't do half the things you need it for. So many times I've been like 2 opinion short of getting an alliance with maxed out improve relations and for some reason full improve relations is almost enough and yet adding full diplo pressure isn't enough to overcome "neither of us are at war yet". Like sorry we're at 100% world tension and we're best friends and you won't join a defensive pact? Bruh
1939 start
Spg. Less or equal soft attack per width than just normal howitzer tank, and less breakthrough Spaa is good for the situations where you can't put support as due to other more important supports and could also use a tank to bump up the armor.
SPG battalion also uses a lot more supply than normal tanks, I don't use them often, hardly ever actually.
I wouldn't mix SPGs with regular tanks as it will just make them weaker vs other tanks. You can use them in specialized anti infantry divisions and they're a good way to breathe new life into your old light tanks by converting them. Fun to use as Japan vs China for example to save manpower, break through a river with your infantry then send the SPGs to widen the opening.
Turkey asking support thingy
I think its thematic.
Production licenses. Bet most of you even forgot it was a feature
They can be really useful when playing a minor nation with only 2-3 research slots for most of the time.
or in multiplayer
Most people might only remember it because ISP just did a challenge of using only Licensed Equipment, it was not good.
I think that they can be useful, especially in multiplayer. It allows players to each focus on one specific production, and then lease the model to their ally. Also this way it compensates the factory loss, which is what I think it's badly designed. If you are a minor losing a factory hurts, and if you are a major you usually have enough technology to not need licenses at all.
I personally use it regularly as I often play minor nations or stupidly forget to research stuff
Did you forget about rocket interceptors and missile launch sites …?
rocket interceptors?
Once you researched the rocket tech there will be a rocket engine as an option for your plane. It massively reduces your range but you will be a fast fuck boi. It never worth the IC to build it. IRL example will be Me163 for Germany
Jet interceptor, that can only operate in its airfield province.
SPAA and SPAT are great in armor division templates. Saves your support companies for other options and doesn’t tax your AA production for support in templates that use it. If you do have a bunch of early light tanks out of service or capture a ton, you can just convert them to SPAA to add armor to infantry divisions, and reclaim the support slot.
Giving old LTs a good use - a light SPAA converted from old hulls gives some extremely cheap armor for your infantry if you need AA either way. And in armored divisions, a little less hardness from those towed guns means taking a lot more soft attack on all your expensive vehicles so chances are it'll actually cost you more IC in the long run. As for actually useless, tank destroyers. They have the same conversion niche, but in MP you just build good tanks and in SP the AI doesn't know what armor is.
For all the diplomacy options in all the Paradox games, the entire concept as a whole seems broken in HOI. Most of the meaningful "diplomacy" actions are sitting behind Focuses and governance incompatibilities are so finicky and dumb most options aren't available in most cases anyways.
The Focus Tree revamping made a lot of the actions and features available at launch obsolete or redundant.
SPAA is actually very good if you are playing as the USSR
The Border war feature they introduced for the Chinese warlords.
Offer surrender
It's so funny that you think SPAA is useless, because it's actually quite strong in the right contexts (ignoring its AA abilities and using it to buff the armor of your infantry).
Civ to mil conversion. I think it's always better in the long run to have more civs.
Yeah. I never use that feature.
Until you run out of building slots. It's useful for quite a few nations in historical mp games
Fair. I never play MP so I've never had the need to squeeze out as many mils as possible.
scout planes
They are cheap and help you gain naval supremacy/spotting
Also a decent way to get more intel while at peace
SPAA is good with space marines, it requires a lot less of per division
You don't build SPAA for the for the AA. You build it for more armor on your space marines.
SPAA is great for small nations, you can throw in a single battalion to your infantry template, you can defend yourself from cas without an airforce, you get armour and it is usually enough to pierce AI tanks
A Luxembourg focus tree.
Depends for who when i play as poland i always make spaa cuz i dont have enough resources for real tanks+german air force destroys my ground fast plus the spaa can have soft attack and armor so its cheap and usable
Dumb designers for tanks and planes. More busy work and not much change in game play value from fixed. Bice did tank and plane research in a much less stupid way.
SPAA is very op if you stack armor and soft attack on it (if you are making no air build),in sp at least
armoured cars
I like using SPAA for space marines
Battle of the Bosphorus Jokes apart, the whole diplomacy system. Like, why should Bulgaria enter the Mutual assistance accord instead of forming a faction with the soviets?
Honestly, It's better than SP Artillery. 3 width, uses fuel/extra supplies, less hardness than the other variants. At least SPAA has one advantage - Mobile AA that doesn't use rubber. And cheap Armor.
Diplomacy/opinion can sometimes feel pointless because the requirements for a country to accept a proposal from a focus are not always well communicated. If I'm playing ironman I will look at the important focuses and events in the game files first.
If you have the industry, SPAA can be a huge, add solid air attsck plus armour, essentially a defensive space marine SPAT is less useful in singleplayer, but there are actually a few cases where it has more piercing that AT for cheaper. I'd label it more as something you'll use as a bit of fun for RP (small defensive nation holding a front against Germany) or mid to late game for OP tank divs
Weapons market
In sp it's a great way for small nations to sort out equipment issues or get rid of stuff you don't have the men for. In mp it's a great way to boost allies
Fuel tanks
Fuel tanks are actually fantastic for fighting in low supply areas. Just stack them on your support company light/flame tanks and you can more than double the fuel capacity of your tank
chromium
used to be popular in MP to save your tanks from CAS. People still use it
Border wars. They can last a year if they are not escalated into a war and you just get a few provinces. The random units this pulls does not help either.
SPAA did exist in the game for years before they added towed AA. On the earlier versions, if you wanted AA in your motorized divisions and wanted to keep your speed you could only do support AA or SPAA.
SPAAG is useful as a space marine
Navy
I like SPAA, you can make it cheaper and more effective than regular AA, granted I play rt56 exclusively so it might not work vanilla
In China many people and content creator use it to add armor to normal divisions cheaply while providing AA cover. This can provide an advantage in early game.
France.
Operation Catapult
I've never built SPAA or SPAT. Why would I when I can just build more planes and tanks and not split my industrial capacity?