Back to game, where to start ?

[Enzo]

Hi guys,

Back to the HoI series after a while, been playing since Hoi1 a lot in MP but not very much on Hoi4 I would like to know where to start to dig properly into the game.
All the best and stay safe

 

[BeauNiddle]

Assuming you want an approximate WW2 experience.

Germany is probably the easiest country to play since you control the pace of the war and you have a lot of advantages.

UK is a good teacher for the air war & naval. It has to fight to hold Africa. Downside is you have to fight everywhere and you're mostly reactionary - responding to the axis initially and then responding to where the USA decides to invade later.

USA is a safe learning experience but with the downside that by the time you get involved it may be too late.

USSR has possibilities but has one of the weakest focus trees currently.

Italy can be a good learning country as you're not as overpowered as Germany but you also have the options of taking control over your own destiny (as opposed to UK)


If you have the expansion packs then Canada, South Africa or India can be fun if you want to test yourself with much more limited options. Same with countries from Death or Dishonour or the Battle for the Bosporus - with the downside of them being land locked to aggressive countries.

As for more detailed guidance check out:

Beginners Resource Collection! | Paradox Interactive Forums (paradoxplaza.com)

or ask specific questions about things you don't understand in these forums.

 

[Enzo]

thanks a lot, very useful
I guess I have to familiarize myself with the new mechanism, no more resource stockpile I can see, good !

 

[Enzo]

After a week or so on learning the game, looking around various source of informations. I have some questions unclear to me yet:
playing with all extension

On Naval Composition for Submarines Convoy Raiding:
- is it better to have 1 Task Force of 50 SUB in 1 Fleet on raiding mission in 5 sea zone OR
5 Task Force of 10 SUB each in 1 Fleet on 5 sea zone OR
1 Task Force of 10 SUB in 5 Fleets, each raiding 1 sea zone ?

or may be it doesn't matter

On a side note, I'm overwhelmed by the numbers of information around (this forum, video, wiki, other forums ...) this has changed since HoI 1

 

[bitmode]

- is it better to have 1 Task Force of 50 SUB in 1 Fleet on raiding mission in 5 sea zone OR
5 Task Force of 10 SUB each in 1 Fleet on 5 sea zone OR
1 Task Force of 10 SUB in 5 Fleets, each raiding 1 sea zone ?

or may be it doesn't matter

It does matter.

The fleet part of the question is the more simple one: an admiral can only lead one fleet and a fleet has a defined area of operations. So if you have multiple disconnected patches you want to operate in, you'll obviously need multiple fleets. But otherwise you'll want to keep the number of fleets low to use the best (and/or most specialized) admirals for as many ships as possible. Regardless of admirals, there is not much point in subdividing into individual sea zones for convoy raiding and I think it can be actively bad when spotting divisions because the subs have to give up on their target when it leaves their area.

The optimal sizing of task forces is less clear but roughly bounded by the following mechanics:

• positioning penalty for large TFs: the side with more ships in an engagement gets a positioning penalty of up to 50%. Bad positioning in turn lowers your per-ship damage. If you bring far more subs to the fight than there are convoys, it is at least not ideal in this regard. Though there are traits and skills to mitigate that.
• spotting speed: paradoxically (pun intended), larger TFs do not spot enemies more quickly. A large pack of subs can finish off the convoys very quickly but finding and spotting them in the first place still takes quite some time. A 50-sub TF would most of the time do the same job as a TF of 1.
• parallel spotting: each enemy convoy route or division in transit can only be spotted by one TF (per country) at the same time. If you have far more TFs than there are targets in the area, some of them will always be idle. The same consideration applies to (potential) enemy patrols looking for your subs -- more sub TFs means more potential targets for them to start spotting.
• command limit of admirals: You can only put so many TFs under an admiral's command. Increasing each TF's size may be preferable to them being commanded by the next best one. A bunch of admiral traits are desirable for convoy raiding and it may be difficult to get them on many admirals.

I tend to start thinking about a new fleet when I reach 10 TFs of about 7 subs each in a fleet but it really depends on observing the current performance.

 

[Enzo]

Very useful, many thanks @bitmode
If I've well understood you tend to group your TF under a fleet assuming the mission will be in the same region (make sense to me) and keep relatively small TF of subs, this also allow you to benefit of the admiral traits that are not so often available and so maximise Fleet bonus.
so if I've got it right you go for option 2 : 5 Task Force of 10 SUB each in 1 Fleet on 5 sea zone (7 SUB into each TF in your case)
of course if you have mission both in Atlantic and Med for instance you'll have two distincts fleet.

it's not so easy to come back to a game after a long break and all the extension available now, even if I've played the precedent sequel for years ... it's really different from HoI3.

 

[MR2]

Welcome back @Enzo