What Video Games Have You Been Playing #11: I should go

[cardgame]

Giving them all 5 support companies is probably what's killing your organization

I did read up on the other posts for the 20/40 combat width tips. Thanks for the spearheading info.

 

[Lexicus]

Giving them all 5 support companies is probably what's killing your organization

Yikes, had no idea support companies decreased organization. Will have to look at the statistical effects of each one in-game next time I play.

 

[Dachs]

@Lexicus Britain and Germany are separate entities, each with their own fascist alliance bloc, although Britain's only includes Bulgaria. As a junior axis member I cannot do anything about that. I'm kind of unhappy with the way diplomacy developed during this Italy campaign, actually, since I wanted to play the 'Italy First' national focus. I am thinking of using it as a stepping stone to Germany and the next difficulty level up, since I feel a lot more familiarized with the mechanics now. How do you coordinate your motorized/mechanized divisions? Do you have an entire 24-div army for it as part of an army group or do you just have a small slice of a standard 24 army as mobile units and give them assign them a spearhead one at a time?

@Dachs will give better advice on this game than I do, I only play on Regular difficulty.

Like TMIT says (and I think he's much more experienced than I am), there's not necessarily a one-size-fits-all. You can absolutely do well and win without making any armor at all, depending on IC and available resources.

The most crucial thing in the game remains, in my opinion, the ability to either secure air superiority over the battlefield for yourself or to deny it to the enemy. Without air superiority, you will find it significantly more difficult to push. How you design your divisions does matter, especially in terms of connecting it to your chosen doctrine, research, and industrial capacity, but control of the air is a much less marginal advantage.

 

[Lexicus]

That's the thing about HOI4 is you can write a multi-paragraph detailed post and still completely neglect a crucial aspect of the game

edit: or maybe I'm just dumb, one of the two

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I actually rarely use the in-game battle plan function. I know this gives you a combat malus but I found that the spearhead plan behavior is too stupid to tolerate.

Planning bonus decays 8x faster with right click orders. You can instead repeatedly make new spearhead orders (even on 1 province distance) and execute them when you really need the extra modifiers.

Generally a straight line spearhead from units created for dedicated attack mostly works. Chained spearhead orders bug out horribly and will often send units careening far beyond the green-highlighted path, sometimes even in an opposite direction. So stick with one spearhead and cancel/renew once units get to destination. Also worth manually micromanaging units behind the spearhead, because if you don't the AI for it is bad and you can and will be counter-encircled.

Even with all those considerations, having 30-60% more of everything from soft attack to breakthrough is strong enough to merit learning to use it. If you're in a dominant position with experienced + high damage units you can skip though.

So what I do is, I make small armies of purely armored divisions, each one supported by an ideally-larger army of motorized infantry (I don't even really bother researching mechanized as imo the bonuses are not really worth the disruption in production you get from switching from trucks to halftracks).

Researching mechanized 1 gives you bonuses to your motorized even if you don't switch, so you should generally research mechanized 1.

Actually building/using mechanized equipment is generally not recommended, however. That IC is better spent on tanks or planes.

Keeping tanks on tank commanders and infantry with their own commanders is good play. Commanders get traits that benefit a unit type, so you want to maximize your benefits.

Standard infantry division composition is 7 infantry battalions and 2 artillery battalions with engineering, logistics and artillery support companies, and I usually add an anti-tank company later on.

FYI this stopped being meta a few patches back. Artillery got nerfed, so 7/2 is only marginally better at damaging than 10-0 infantry with a support artillery. The latter costs significantly less IC to produce and actually holds up to powerful attackers a little better. In a direct fight between 10-0 and 7/2, the attacker will lose pretty badly regardless, so I recommend the cheaper option. These are mostly made to block/hold line rather than attack unless you're very advanced with micromanagement/pinning attacks and planning bonus/leader trait manipulation.

Yikes, had no idea support companies decreased organization. Will have to look at the statistical effects of each one in-game next time I play.

TL DR version is that the division designer has a weird algorithm that mixes a "stat of the highest" with an averaging function for some stats. So putting a single tank can increase your armor substantially. This also means that you can lose piercing by adding support companies other than AA/AT, but the benefit they confer can be worth it.

I'd value having 5 support companies more than an additional tank if we're talking 16/4 vs 15/5 tank setups, as things like engineering, recon, and logistics are straight up more valuable to me than the marginal difference of a tank vs mot in a battalion slot.

Maintenance is only worth considering on low reliability designs or equipment capture memes with terrible nations (like playing as Chad or something w/o nation ruining allies otherwise). Support arty is still excellent value, 5th slot can be preference like rocket arty or AA. Probably not AT on tank divisions, you'll have enough in SP with just the tanks.

The most crucial thing in the game remains, in my opinion, the ability to either secure air superiority over the battlefield for yourself or to deny it to the enemy. Without air superiority, you will find it significantly more difficult to push. How you design your divisions does matter, especially in terms of connecting it to your chosen doctrine, research, and industrial capacity, but control of the air is a much less marginal advantage.

Yeah. Operating in red air is miserable. Even more so if the enemy uses CAS too, since CAS completely ignores division armor/defense stats and will tend to gut high expense, low-hp divisions like tanks. Worst case at least add support AA + line AA to offset the enemy air superiority advantage and shoot down/interrupt the CAS. This is still an enemy win because your division is somewhat weaker in ground combat, but at least you're not getting completely fleeced for -30% defense/breakthrough (sometimes more depending on enemy doctrine) in addition to attack penalties + constant shredding from armor-bypassing air damage.

There's also some weird interactions because this is a paradox game. For example if you use an odd spread of cavalry + infantry you can simultaneously train both cavalry and infantry leader traits. You can then add ~3 tanks to this division and it will still count as a "cavalry" division at 40w, which is also technically an "infantry" division. So you can get stupidity like + 100% division attack/breakthrough from commander skill, or maybe ~90% after the nerf. Combined with planning bonus, doctrine, and at least regular xp you can get a lot of power off of divisions that cost relatively little IC.

 

[Lexicus]

These are mostly made to block/hold line rather than attack unless you're very advanced with micromanagement/pinning attacks and planning bonus/leader trait manipulation.

I do use my infantry divisions to make pinning attacks all the time. Not using the in-game plan function much means I have to heavily micro everything. I usually start a concentric infantry attack against the enemy pocket before I'm even finished encircling it to prevent enemy from getting units out of the encirclement.

Planning bonus decays 8x faster with right click orders. You can instead repeatedly make new spearhead orders (even on 1 province distance) and execute them when you really need the extra modifiers.

Well, I did single spearhead orders that extended probably 4-6 provinces and my armored divisions attacked completely the wrong provinces so I just washed my hands of the whole thing. Repeated spearhead orders extending 1 province might work better I guess but idk, just issuing right-click orders has worked for me for the most part.

Operating in red air is miserable.

It's damn near impossible. A few games ago I kicked off the invasion of France and Belgium (my SOP as Germany is to invade the Netherlands ASAP, makes the conquest of France and Belgium totally easy later) and I was like "why are my armored divisions failing against Belgian infantry". Answer: I had forgotten to issue any orders to my aircraft! Once I fixed that I cleaned up no problem.

The only time I remember operating without any air cover at all was with the Chinese Communists, but it didn't matter much because their early wars are won not by actually beating the enemy in battle but by pinning his divisions in losing combats while your extra divisions go for their victory points.

Side note: i've read that ground AA units are a waste, truth? Is building up state AA in the construction screen worth it?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

State AA mostly just resists bombing, though it also impacts air superiority a little.

Unit AA is completely different, if you have enough it completely removes the enemy air superiority penalties. Advanced versions can shoot down hundreds of CAS/TAC attacking your divisions per 30 day cycle too, so it's definitely worth if you can't win the air or are doing invasion operations like first-landing on USA or a super late game D-Day vs a Germany that won Barbarossa/took England such that just getting enough air fields to contend with > 6k aircraft is impossible (AI can have > 20k fighters alone in these scenarios).

You can edit spearheads so they do closer to what you want. I've not seen units disobey the path displayed unless doing order chaining.

 

[Ajidica]

@Ajidica, we were discussing it last night on Steam chat, would you say that Rome 2's battles feel similar to Attila's? I like the battles in Attila but man that campaign map is brutal.

Not sure, as I haven't played much Rome2 and struggled enough with the Attila campaign I never played many mid or late game battles. I would say that Rome2 has a more lethal battlefield. A lot of units have javelins and from what I've seen in battle replays even crappy javelins can wreck the day of cataphracts. Plus, pikes are super lethal to cavalry as they seem to keep their pikes when fighting a rear charge as opposed to Rome1 where they switch to swords. However, the greater availability of javelins does suggest it would avoid some of the Attila issues where there were certain freakishly tough units that could shred through anything in melee and had enough armor to shrug off arrows. (IIRC, the elite heavy axeman from the Norse factions were like that.)

Thanks! For now, it's probably best that I just learn the memorization aspects. A friend recommended the game for me and since I wanted to use a bad nation at first I've been playing MA Xibalba, got first win with that yesterday.

But I still have major holes in knowledge like simply knowing what's available down each tech path for each spell school and craftable items (boosting ones and otherwise). There's no way around it, either I play a lot until I learn those naturally or I study them a bit. Not knowing them will leave me stuck at level 2-3 casters while enemies are casting mapwide effects. I'm getting there though, I can at least hit 12-15 provinces by t12 with an awful nation even w/o picking a SC pretender (win was with demon macaw).

Wait, you were able to get 12 provinces by turn 12 without an expander as MA Xibalba?
Holy [censored]. The few times I messed around as MA Xibalba my starting army got wrecked after one or two provinces and I ended up relying almost entirely on my expander. What blessing/troops were you using? MA Xibalba is one of the factions I felt needs an awake expander because their starting army and troops, especially before you have cleared the cap circle, are not good.

 

[Lexicus]

Not sure, as I haven't played much Rome2 and struggled enough with the Attila campaign I never played many mid or late game battles. I would say that Rome2 has a more lethal battlefield. A lot of units have javelins and from what I've seen in battle replays even crappy javelins can wreck the day of cataphracts. Plus, pikes are super lethal to cavalry as they seem to keep their pikes when fighting a rear charge as opposed to Rome1 where they switch to swords. However, the greater availability of javelins does suggest it would avoid some of the Attila issues where there were certain freakishly tough units that could shred through anything in melee and had enough armor to shrug off arrows. (IIRC, the elite heavy axeman from the Norse factions were like that.)

I'm playing it now, it does play quite similarly to Attila - very fast-paced. Slow-motion is too slow to keep on normally but the normal play speed is too fast. Cavalry seems less OP.

I'm puzzled. I played the Royal Scythians and lay siege to the Roxolani capital, and they counterattack and more than half the battlefield is water, with about half the land being covered by trees.

This is not how the steppe is supposed to be...admittedly the battlefield is on the coast but there is literally no room to flank their line so it seems kind of stupid

 

[Phrossack]

I'm playing it now, it does play quite similarly to Attila - very fast-paced. Slow-motion is too slow to keep on normally but the normal play speed is too fast. Cavalry seems less OP.

I'm puzzled. I played the Royal Scythians and lay siege to the Roxolani capital, and they counterattack and more than half the battlefield is water, with about half the land being covered by trees.

This is not how the steppe is supposed to be...admittedly the battlefield is on the coast but there is literally no room to flank their line so it seems kind of stupid

Weird. I started as the Roxolani and never fought at Gelonus (or did they move to Sarai?). Most battles aren't like that, even at coastal settlements.

 

[FriendlyFire]

Researching mechanized 1 gives you bonuses to your motorized even if you don't switch, so you should generally research mechanized 1.
Actually building/using mechanized equipment is generally not recommended, however. That IC is better spent on tanks or planes.

I see you building mechanised Infantry and start building spearmen to counter
Its how the Soviets won the war

 

[Phrossack]

Rome 2: because no one campaign can hold my interest.

Started a campaign as Syracuse (DLC). I'm sandwiched between Rome and Carthage, and Rome pretty much immediately declared war. They had legions of strong swordsmen with javelins headed my way. I recruited what pikemen I could and prepared for battle. Defeat seemed likely, and though I invested some money for the king's very promising young son to be educated, he died at the age of 11.

Then disease struck my army, as it tends to when I need an army the most. Defeat seemed imminent.

But the Roman legion instead turned around and decided to sail from Neapolis to Syracuse. I spotted them en route and hastily recruited two ballista ships and a mercenary bireme, then sailed up next to them. The Romans attacked.

It was a total massacre.

I lost over eighty men. The Romans lost the entire legion of over 2,000 men. I used my main force as bait, then flanked the enemy transports with the artillery ships and manually aimed the ballistas. Rams finished off the survivors.

I repeated with a second army of 16 units at sea. Another massacre.

I attacked a lone admiral on his skeleton-crewed warship outside Neapolis, taking him and the two small patrol vessels there. I figured this would also bring in the army stationed there on their transports, but it did not. They stayed on land, so rather than send my feeble crews out to attack, I retreated after sinking their ships.

This meant that when a Roman fleet of warships came out of nowhere, I couldn't run. They had the advantage. Instead, I shot every ballista ball I could at the approaching Romans before ramming them. Through shooting and ramming, I somehow won, at the cost of several vessels lost to onager fire.

Apparently, killing so many Romans created an opening for Carthage to attack. They took the entire southern Italian peninsula and are now poised to strike Neapolis before long. While I could take the rest of Sicily while they're gone, the Romans are still the greater threat, though too distant for me to invade and hold myself.

Still, I'm surprised I survived, and I'd rather fight a Carthaginian empire than a Roman one.

 

[cardgame]

I've never tried to tough it out as Syracuse before, their startpos just seems so absolutely terrible.

 

[Phrossack]

I've never tried to tough it out as Syracuse before, their startpos just seems so absolutely terrible.

It's such a bad position I was actually scouting out Crete as a new homeland to migrate to, just to get out of the empire sandwich. Tried that as the Ardiaei just for fun, but it's not easy when the culture is 100% not yours!

But everything changed when the Roman nation attacked.

If they hadn't decided to sail rather than march, if I hadn't spotted them early, and if they had refused battle, I probably would have lost. Everything had to go right. It's a rough life as Syracuse, but it's gone great so far.

 

[Lexicus]

It kinda sucks because Europa Barbarorum 2 is way better than Rome 2 but it's too buggy to finish a campaign.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Wait, you were able to get 12 provinces by turn 12 without an expander as MA Xibalba?
Holy [censored]. The few times I messed around as MA Xibalba my starting army got wrecked after one or two provinces and I ended up relying almost entirely on my expander. What blessing/troops were you using? MA Xibalba is one of the factions I felt needs an awake expander because their starting army and troops, especially before you have cleared the cap circle, are not good.

Had hardskin + regen, which let sacreds beat non-barbarian type neutrals w/o losses. I abandoned that run because I found new things to try and figured I could do better, but since I had high end nature + earth on pretender by necessity I probably could have whipped up a troll king summon and kitted him as a SC if I'd taken better tech pathing. Expander is still better for the points and realistically I should really be going blood with Xibalba even in MA, but wanted to try other stuff.

Since I've run them a lot I got used to them. The warriors with spears + 11 prot aren't good, but you can still pile up enough of them to take provinces and they space enemies out a bit with the spears + have shields vs archers. I think Xibalba is best going with these, expander god, and then spamming their low cost guys with magic scales for research in non-cap while making as many blood hunters as it can otherwise. I haven't done any MP yet but I don't see a good way to avoid being a sitting duck if someone makes a bless setup on a nation with proper early cost-effective sacreds, I think this would be harder than expanding into neutrals by a margin.

I see you building mechanised Infantry and start building spearmen to counter

Like I said, you don't actually BUILD the mechanized infantry, you just make sure you know how .

I've never tried to tough it out as Syracuse before, their startpos just seems so absolutely terrible.

From what I've heard/seen western Rome is "fun" in TW: Attila. Though people keep their position intact with them even on legendary.

 

[cardgame]

@Lexicus @TheMeInTeam My HOI infantry consist of engineer/artillery supports, 10 infantry 20w divisions with a castle icon, for holding ground, and 40w 14/4 infantry/artillery with the same support companies for general assault and taking ground. Nothing is precisely calculated or anything, but if I could make it from scratch I'd estimate 2:1 or 3:1 40w to 20w divisions. I have 20w pure cav divisions with recon and artillery companies. Nothing really planned for there, I just upgrade whatever I start with.

It's such a bad position I was actually scouting out Crete as a new homeland to migrate to, just to get out of the empire sandwich. Tried that as the Ardiaei just for fun, but it's not easy when the culture is 100% not yours!

But everything changed when the Roman nation attacked.

If they hadn't decided to sail rather than march, if I hadn't spotted them early, and if they had refused battle, I probably would have lost. Everything had to go right. It's a rough life as Syracuse, but it's gone great so far.

If you are marched upon from the north, you can set up an ambush or, more likely to succeed and bring battle to your favor, a fortified encampment at Messina. They have to go through you there.

 

[Phrossack]

If you are marched upon from the north, you can set up an ambush or, more likely to succeed and bring battle to your favor, a fortified encampment at Messina. They [I]have [/I]to go through you there.

A fort could have worked with my pikemen. But my army was fairly small, while the Romans had 20-unit legions with Hastati that could have done a lot of damage. I wanted my 10-unit land garrison and four-unit naval garrison to aid me in battle.

At any rate, following even more legions drowned by my fleet, a northward thrust by Carthage, some attacks by the Etruscans, and a sudden invasion by Massalia, Rome has been utterly destroyed! Their fleet briefly retook Neapolis only to be conquered again and eliminated. Massalia took Rome itself.

That's when I attacked Carthage. My army had gotten pretty solid due to Thorax Swordsmen and the training of the completely OP Greek Champion, so I seized the rest of Sicily and then marched into Italy proper. Oddly, not one of the five Carthaginian towns there has a single garrison unit. Maybe they didn't bother converting the main settlement buildings? At any rate, I rule all of Magna Græcia now. Their naval counterattacks at Lilybaeum were foiled by a new general recruited just to keep the peace with his feeble garrison - twice. One counterattack hit Cosentium and failed, costing them some elephants, while the next succeeded. My royal army then retook it, destroying the last Carthaginian armies in Italy and leaving the others literally undefended. While the first generation of Syracusan leadership has passed away, the second is taking Italy by storm.

 

[Lexicus]

P badass, I'm building up a powerbase in eastern Iran as Parthia myself. Will be going to war against Persia soon to take most of the eastern Iranian plateau.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I've been reading about the Battle of Asculum and the Battle of Beneventum (both Pyrrhus vs Rome), and have just started on the Battle of Cynoscephalae in the Second Macedonian War (Rome vs. the Antigonid Dynasty of Macedonia, one of the 3 competing successors to Alexander the Great). Anyway, I bought Rome II (the "Emperor Edition", iirc, whatever that is) a couple of years ago and never really played it, but reading this book is making me think I should give it another try.