Army Composition

[BogMod]

Ok first off going to be honest never played Hearts of Iron III either so I admit looking at the dev diaries, videos of that game and the stuff for the new Hearts of Iron 4 coming out I am still left confused about some things. Can someone explain a bit more about how armies in this game works? Like is there a rough division balance you would want like how in EU4 you don't want too much Cavalry generally or things of that nature?

 

[Wimpola]

First let's start with HoI3's way of building a division. When you open the production panel at the top of the screen there will be 3 panels one army, one navy, and one airborne panel and once clicked gives you the production que. In the division builder you will see on the left dozens of types of units that can be put in your division. However you only have 4 slots at the start of the game so you need to pick wisely. A typical infantry division is 2 infantry brigades, 1 artillery, and 1 of your choice. After constructing these divisions you will have to manually deploy them in your territory. Next you will assign the division to a Corp (smallest organized HQ) or an Army (Usually holds HQ's) or an army group (holds armies) and then Theatres (holds army groups). This will increase organization and give each of your divisions boosts in combat. In Hearts of Iron 4 however things are a bit different. Instead of a cap of 4 brigades there is now a cap of 25 battalions with 5 supporting ones (support units like engineers and radio teams). Here is the link to this division designer to see all about it
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...f-iron-iv-dev-diary-6-division-design.783017/
An infantry battalion is roughly 900 men and I believe that the columns are Brigades so if the column is filled it is 5 battalions or 4,500 men. After constructing these divisions you place them in theatres and draw out plans. Hope you found this helpful and if not question me for more details.

 

[Wyrm]

Also your access to certain materials will limit how much armor and stuff you can deploy, so you will want to keep a balanced force.

 

[BogMod]

An infantry battalion is roughly 900 men and I believe that the columns are Brigades so if the column is filled it is 5 battalions or 4,500 men. After constructing these divisions you place them in theatres and draw out plans. Hope you found this helpful and if not question me for more details.

Going by that each cell is 1000 men, a division being made of up to 6 brigades and each brigade being between 1000 and 5000 men you have up to 30k in each division. I get that my curiosity is more about the spread. If you have too much of one thing in a division does it start giving diminishing returns? Does missing some one element just cause an automatic penalty of some kind? Like say you have resources to make as you wanted 50 divisions what would be the balanced approach?

 

[jamesd]

Going by that each cell is 1000 men, a division being made of up to 6 brigades and each brigade being between 1000 and 5000 men you have up to 30k in each division. I get that my curiosity is more about the spread. If you have too much of one thing in a division does it start giving diminishing returns? Does missing some one element just cause an automatic penalty of some kind? Like say you have resources to make as you wanted 50 divisions what would be the balanced approach?

Well in the World War Wednesday telecasts, Germany has pretty much conquered Russia during winter without using any artillery or anti tank guns and while experiencing shortages of infantry weapons so as it stands now I think as long as you have enough divisions with infantry in them your armies will do fine.

 

[safe-keeper]

Yes, in an alpha build with an incomplete AI he managed to do this. In the finished game it'll probably be a whole other story.

There are lots of stuff going on here. lets dive in:

• AI is still in development (this never stops and its usually the last feature to feel finished), even minor stuff that could take 10min to fix will kick the legs from under an AI and turn it from Guderian to braindead duck. This week we introduced a bug where AI would use most of its units for garrisons (even tank divisions) rather than on the frontline, making for easy picking (pretty sure this bug was in the WWW build). This is just how development is when it comes to AI and say germany can flip between world conquest and getting owned by poland over one days testing.
• This savegame is getting quite old now, this kind of stuff makes a big deal for AI development and it cant have planned for changes done. We are doing our best not to break the savegame during development each week, but it gets trickier and trickier as stuff changes last weeks update made thousands of airplanes disappear for the AI for example and I had to hand-edit it so it wouldnt crash
• Soviet got (From a bug because it takes quite a while these days) a Trotsky coup very early. This has some severe ramifications where their industry was reduced by 40% early on putting them way behind and I suspect they got lost and couldnt remove the penalty. Soviet also at this point I think is suffering from purging its officers and not having sorted that out yet, so AI is way behind player at this point.
• Daniel caught soviet by surprise, their troops in training and in bad shape and it was still 1940. This is a huge advantage for him being prepared for it.
• Daniel is probably the best HOI player at the office. If you think a 1500 hours player, who is doing a ton of microing, on a major nation should struggle against a beta AI you need to check your expectations because you will never be satisfied with AI performance in any game.
• As for plan complexity, Daniel is getting away with this because he is microing to make up for it and has much better industry than the soviet AI. This is basically the same as playing HOI3 and microing all your troops, or say play HOI3, put a theater objective on Moscow and just managing your industry (this usually lets me win in HOI3 on regular difficulty as theater AI will just push).

Basically, stuff is in development.

Alpha builds (or "just-went-beta-builds" ) are typically not at all balanced. That's what beta testing is for.

 

[safe-keeper]

Ok first off going to be honest never played Hearts of Iron III either so I admit looking at the dev diaries, videos of that game and the stuff for the new Hearts of Iron 4 coming out I am still left confused about some things. Can someone explain a bit more about how armies in this game works? Like is there a rough division balance you would want like how in EU4 you don't want too much Cavalry generally or things of that nature?

I'm not 100% sure of the details and I don't want to be misleading, so I'll just say there is at least one DD that will interest you .

As for balance, in HOI3, there was a Combined Arms bonus that rewarded you for putting different kinds of units in a division, and I seem to recall you had to have infantry (motorised/mechanised or on foot) in the division to get this bonus. Don't know how this will work in HOi4.

 

[jamesd]

Yes, in an alpha build with an incomplete AI he managed to do this. In the finished game it'll probably be a whole other story.

Alpha builds (or "just-went-beta-builds" ) are typically not at all balanced. That's what beta testing is for.

OK, I admit I was being a bit tongue in cheek, but at the moment its not possible to say whether we will need to build balanced armies or not.

 

[LordOfWar16]

Well in the World War Wednesday telecasts, Germany has pretty much conquered Russia during winter without using any artillery or anti tank guns and while experiencing shortages of infantry weapons so as it stands now I think as long as you have enough divisions with infantry in them your armies will do fine.

daniel knows how to game an imbalanced system. Besides that the soviet union was very weak. The trotsky coup drasticly slows down the soviet industrial build-up and efficiency with the national spirit you gain because of him. Other than that Daniel declared early, giving the soviet AI no time to prepare. Then Daniel simply overran pretty much the whole soviet industry, which is concentrated in the west, so that the soviet divisions literaly ran out of everything. You can see later on that there are basicly no divisions left at the eastern front and that daniel is just marching through. Other than that the german divisions werent really out of supply. Daniel produced tons of equipment in half a dozend lines.

The reason for daniel to remove artillery and such is that that strenghens the divisions organization. His divisions will suffer more casualties, but in the long run his divisions will win, with inflicting less damage due to the enemies organisation running out. He does that because he likes to micromanage his troops for encirclements, which he did an excelent job on boosting the soviet casualties sky high. That way he removed an large portion of the soviet troops from the map, since they were forced to surrender to him.

 

[jamesd]

daniel knows how to game an imbalanced system. Besides that the soviet union was very weak. The trotsky coup drasticly slows down the soviet industrial build-up and efficiency with the national spirit you gain because of him. Other than that Daniel declared early, giving the soviet AI no time to prepare. Then Daniel simply overran pretty much the whole soviet industry, which is concentrated in the west, so that the soviet divisions literaly ran out of everything. You can see later on that there are basicly no divisions left at the eastern front and that daniel is just marching through. Other than that the german divisions werent really out of supply. Daniel produced tons of equipment in half a dozend lines.

The reason for daniel to remove artillery and such is that that strenghens the divisions organization. His divisions will suffer more casualties, but in the long run his divisions will win, with inflicting less damage due to the enemies organisation running out. He does that because he likes to micromanage his troops for encirclements, which he did an excelent job on boosting the soviet casualties sky high. That way he removed an large portion of the soviet troops from the map, since they were forced to surrender to him.

And from that demonstration we can see that its currently easy for a good human player to win against the AI with an unbalanced army. Hopefully the AI will be improved and a myriad of other tweaks will be made to make the game more challenging before its released.

 

[Antediluvian Monster]

The reason for daniel to remove artillery and such is that that strenghens the divisions organization. His divisions will suffer more casualties, but in the long run his divisions will win, with inflicting less damage due to the enemies organisation running out. He does that because he likes to micromanage his troops for encirclements, which he did an excelent job on boosting the soviet casualties sky high. That way he removed an large portion of the soviet troops from the map, since they were forced to surrender to him.

The problem I have is that I don't understand on level of principle why lack of artillery should result in that kind of organizational advantage. Even if artillery reduces org of a division the increase in org damage to enemy should more than make up for it.

Since people have thrown Japan vs. China examples in this, on the idea that ingame infantry battalions represent some kind of battalion combat teams with slice of divisional artillery* represented as "infantry equipment**" and that ingame artillery only represents heavy artillery, then consider this: one time in Sino-Japanese war that Japanese actually brought their heavy artillery for river assault the Chinese retreated before the artillery completed it's first fire mission. Isn't that the effect that Daniel was looking for?

*I find the idea ridiculous when the game represents individual light tanks, trucks, small bore ATGs of less than half a ton in weight and so on.

**Field artillery, say 75mm field gun of ton and quarter in weight of the kind normally found in seperate divisional artillery unit is, of course, not infantry equipment like rifle or 50kg medium mortar. It's artillery equipment.

 

[alp177]

I have mentioned before but arty actually gives you an org bonus not hindering your division any way .

 

[fabius]

View attachment 157613 I have mentioned before but arty actually gives you an org bonus not hindering your division any way .

If it's like How I remember Hoi3, it depends on where the arty infantry techs are relative to each other. Tech's increased Org so upgraded infantry may have higher org than low grade arty- thus the average would be lowering or. (Not saying this is perfect; just how I remember it was in Hoi3 )

 

[Victor Cortez]

Is it just me or everybody is going off topic?

Ok first off going to be honest never played Hearts of Iron III either so I admit looking at the dev diaries, videos of that game and the stuff for the new Hearts of Iron 4 coming out I am still left confused about some things. Can someone explain a bit more about how armies in this game works? Like is there a rough division balance you would want like how in EU4 you don't want too much Cavalry generally or things of that nature?

My understanding is that yes, there is such a balance but it depends on too many factors (whereas in EU4 the variables are more limited).
As far as I know, you want to have as many tanks as you can field (and reinforce!), unless you're fighting in unfavorable terrain (mountainous regions, jungles...), areas with lots of islands or poor infrastructure (armoured divisions should require more supply).

For the organization loss that support companies give I suppose the increase in firepower offsets the org loss. For which support companies you want in your divisions, my opinion is here: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...upport-companies-which-where-and-when.900734/

The speed reduction given from artillery is something you need to plan depending on what that division will be doing. If you plan a blitzkrieg through Russia, maybe you're better off without it, if you're defending beyond a river, you need it.

To (hopefully) answer your question, the balance of your army will have to take into consideration:
- What resources you have access to (lots of oil for your tanks? Enough manpower for spendable infantry divisions?)
- What your building capacity is (do you need to focus on the navy as well?)
- Where you will be fighting (Japan probably doesn't need that many tanks)
- Who your enemy is.

 

[Animum24]

I trink it's going to be basically the same as in HOI 3.
Infantry is the rise and fall of a good army.
Too few and you will be outflanked, too much and you will run out of manpower or you won't be able to maneuver quickly.
In addition to that, in HOI 4 you will be really restricted by the ability to reinforce your expensive tank divisions so you will have to rely on the ordinary foot soldier to do the dirty work and only use the tanks for breakthroughs or such things.
But in the end the balance of your army will depend on the balance of the game.

 

[LordOfWar16]

View attachment 157613 I have mentioned before but arty actually gives you an org bonus not hindering your division any way .

That support artillery still lowers the organisation. They changed that a long time ago and your screenshot is very outdated.

The Org actually increases by 10 once he removed the support artillery in this recent (2 weeks old) screenshot from WWW.

It jumped from 40 to 50 once he removed it. Those numbers arent an increase, but the battalions stats itself. The division wont be 8km/h faster only because you add artillery to it either.

The problem I have is that I don't understand on level of principle why lack of artillery should result in that kind of organizational advantage. Even if artillery reduces org of a division the increase in org damage to enemy should more than make up for it.

Since people have thrown Japan vs. China examples in this, on the idea that ingame infantry battalions represent some kind of battalion combat teams with slice of divisional artillery* represented as "infantry equipment**" and that ingame artillery only represents heavy artillery, then consider this: one time in Sino-Japanese war that Japanese actually brought their heavy artillery for river assault the Chinese retreated before the artillery completed it's first fire mission. Isn't that the effect that Daniel was looking for?

*I find the idea ridiculous when the game represents individual light tanks, trucks, small bore ATGs of less than half a ton in weight and so on.

**Field artillery, say 75mm field gun of ton and quarter in weight of the kind normally found in seperate divisional artillery unit is, of course, not infantry equipment like rifle or 50kg medium mortar. It's artillery equipment.

It is very simple. Balancing. Other than that one could argue that more moving parts of an division will make it harder for them to propperly organize. The more you add to an mechanism, the more complicated it gets.

 

[panzerzombie]

It is very simple. Balancing. Other than that one could argue that more moving parts of an division will make it harder for them to propperly organize. The more you add to an mechanism, the more complicated it gets.

Undoubtly.

But then why should a small Cav Division of 4 Battalions with - say - 5 support companies have less Org than a monster Division with 25 Combat Battalions and no support company ?

 

[EntropyAvatar]

It's very interesting in the screenshot that it lists support artillery as decreasing piercing by 0.1. So piercing and armor of a division are no longer based only on the division component with the best stats?

 

[Hiiri]

First let's start with HoI3's way of building a division. When you open the production panel at the top of the screen there will be 3 panels one army, one navy, and one airborne panel and once clicked gives you the production que. In the division builder you will see on the left dozens of types of units that can be put in your division. However you only have 4 slots at the start of the game so you need to pick wisely. A typical infantry division is 2 infantry brigades, 1 artillery, and 1 of your choice. After constructing these divisions you will have to manually deploy them in your territory. Next you will assign the division to a Corp (smallest organized HQ) or an Army (Usually holds HQ's) or an army group (holds armies) and then Theatres (holds army groups). This will increase organization and give each of your divisions boosts in combat. In Hearts of Iron 4 however things are a bit different. Instead of a cap of 4 brigades there is now a cap of 25 battalions with 5 supporting ones (support units like engineers and radio teams). Here is the link to this division designer to see all about it
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...f-iron-iv-dev-diary-6-division-design.783017/
An infantry battalion is roughly 900 men and I believe that the columns are Brigades so if the column is filled it is 5 battalions or 4,500 men. After constructing these divisions you place them in theatres and draw out plans. Hope you found this helpful and if not question me for more details.

Why is this post getting so many disagrees? Numbers aside, Isn't this precisely how it works?

 

[bkuepers]

I have mentioned before but arty actually gives you an org bonus not hindering your division any way .

Not necessarily. Total division org is based on an average. So it could go up or down depending on current makeup as well as land doctrine (bonuses for certain troop types).