Completely unplayable

[assembly]

I played HOI4 a lot as it just came out (in 2016?). It was a lot of fun, must have played hundreds of hours.
Last week i wanted to get back into the game after not having played for 2-3 years. Is it me, or is this game completely unplayable now?

My divisions can never break through an enemy line if there is more than 1 enemy division holding that line (wel the AI can break through my lines)
The AI cheats with their available manpower (Germay has lost over 35 million and has been on "scraping the barrel" for years and losing ever more, yet their available manpower doesn't go down at all.

I use the 7-2 division template and have air superiority. Even made some army groups with breakthrough divisions (5mech and 5 modern tanks + full support companies) but even they can't break through. The game becomes such a grind without achieving anything. And then it gets past 1945 without eliminating any of the factions an the game becomes so slow that it is unplayable.

Am i doing something wrong or is this game no longer meant to be played?

 

[sudpud]

Use 40widths to attack. Use planning bonus. The AI is easy to beat if you understand the mechanics. I can conquer Germany as France with 0 air production by 42 without really trying. A 40w tank division has more breakthrough and higher armor. I'm a bit surprised you couldn't push a single infantry brigade with a 20w tank div and AirSup.

 

[LastButterfly]

My divisions can never break through an enemy line if there is more than 1 enemy division holding that line (wel the AI can break through my lines)

What templates are you using for attack ? On what terrain are you attacking the enemy, and is it fortified ? What kind of divisions are you attacking ? Are your division fully equipped ? What equipment do they have ? What doctrine do you have ? Are they properly supplied ? What are the modifiers in this fight - do you have air superiority, are you crossing a river or a canal, are you (or the enemy) performing shore bombardment, who has intel advantage, are you using planning, is the enemy entrenched, are you attacking from multiple directions to increase combat width and apply encirclement malus- and so on ?

It's not really a matter of division numbers in the end. Two to four well made tank divisions can pierce basically any amount of defending divs on a non-fortified plain provided the assault isn't amphibious.

The AI cheats with their available manpower (Germay has lost over 35 million and has been on "scraping the barrel" for years and losing ever more, yet their available manpower doesn't go down at all.

Scrapping the Barrel grants 25% recuitable population. Historical Germany will go desperate defense for its doctrine, adding 5 more percents. This ridiculous amount of recruitable population will take years to be fully mobilized, so basically Germany's population will keep being mobilized and their manpower pool will only decrease if their average casualties are higher than their average mobilized manpower within the same time period.
The AI loves to get to the higher mobilization laws. It can grant a ridiculous amount of potential manpower that keeps growing, but it's a pain on the production. That's why it's usually easier to drain the AI of its stockpiled equipment, rather than drain it of manpower. Once the enemy divisionslack basic equipments such as artillery and modern guns, it doesn't matter if they have men, their stats will be trash and you should be able to win fairly easily.

Even made some army groups with breakthrough divisions (5mech and 5 modern tanks + full support companies) but even they can't break through

The div looks smol. I can't compute it right now but is it even 20 width ? Either way, its stats must be somewhat sad. You'll want 40w divs to be efficient at attacking. In making good offensive divisions, attack and breakthrought are the two stats you want to look at first, but don't sacrifice all the organization to them, or they'll be useless.

Note that battalions have terrain modifiers. A tank div is good to pierce... except in a mountain, or for amphibious landings. You want to aim for plains, and your second choice should be hills or forests.

is this game no longer meant to be played

Against the AI ? It's just a question of getting the hang of it. Once you know the tricks, you notice how the AI is... not as good as one could initially think.

 

[goodcigar]

Game has like prob 10,000 bug and issue. So in that sense it is unplayable. Definitely not play Ironman.

 

[sudpud]

Game has like prob 10,000 bug and issue. So in that sense it is unplayable. Definitely not play Ironman.

Not hardly. There are few “game breaking” bugs, if any. Not knowing the game mechanics isn’t a bug.

 

[Harin]

I played HOI4 a lot as it just came out (in 2016?). It was a lot of fun, must have played hundreds of hours.
Last week i wanted to get back into the game after not having played for 2-3 years. Is it me, or is this game completely unplayable now?

My divisions can never break through an enemy line if there is more than 1 enemy division holding that line (wel the AI can break through my lines)
The AI cheats with their available manpower (Germay has lost over 35 million and has been on "scraping the barrel" for years and losing ever more, yet their available manpower doesn't go down at all.

I use the 7-2 division template and have air superiority. Even made some army groups with breakthrough divisions (5mech and 5 modern tanks + full support companies) but even they can't break through. The game becomes such a grind without achieving anything. And then it gets past 1945 without eliminating any of the factions an the game becomes so slow that it is unplayable.

Am i doing something wrong or is this game no longer meant to be played?

Welcome to the forums, @Assem123.

If you would attach your saved game, people on the forum could give you direct and helpful information. With your previous experience, they could catch you up pretty quick.

 

[Simon_9732495]

Even made some army groups with breakthrough divisions (5mech and 5 modern tanks + full support companies) but even they can't break through.

You made a good division there. They should be able to melt through the AI lines.

I suppose you are doing most things right but minor things wrong.
Could be that you have no supply, no fuel, maybe you attack over rivers or into mountains, maybe your divisions are underequipped, enemy has air superiority and CAS, enemy is piercing you ...

Please show us a fullscreen screenshot from the game with a detail battle screen of a battle where you cant break through with your tanks.

That's a detail battle screen:

To do a screenshot you press the "Print" key on your keyboard in game and then you paste it into a posting here with "CTRL+V". You dont have to upload it anywhere. Just paste it in.

 

[assembly]

Thank you very much for the helpfull tips everyone.
I will try out some 40 width division templates for attacking. I don't think i ever made a template thats not 20 width (usually 7 inf + 2 art).

The thing is, if you declare war on lets say germany as the soviet union in 1941-1942 they will have defeated the Allies on the continent of europe and they have about 10 divisions on every tile along the border. In the past my modern tank template (5 modern tanks + 5 mech + full support comp) could break through this. Now however they don't stand a chance at all. How do you guys get through this?

Well anyway i'll try out the 40 width template and see how it goes.

@LastButterfly: thank you for explaining in such detail. I've noticed that any changes in the mobilization laws are now influencing the manpower gradually ( in the past you would just shoot up 1 or 2 million manpower within a single day). However it really doesn't seem to end. I'm not playing with any of the dlcs, but could their puppets give germany manpower? (i believe this would be from the "together for victory" dlc).

Is there perhaps a mod which takes the game back to how it was as it released ;-) That was the game i liked playing

 

[Simon_9732495]

Is there perhaps a mod which takes the game back to how it was as it released ;-) That was the game i liked playing

If you are using steam you can go into the game preferences, into the "BETA" section and select older versions there.
(You may have to get an beta access code, which is free)
I just posted a screenshot of the menu in this thread: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...sion-numbers-back-into-the-beta-list.1448742/
You can go back to version 1.0.0.
(Which I wouldnt recommend, because A LOT of bugs were fixed since then.)

 

[LastButterfly]

However it really doesn't seem to end. I'm not playing with any of the dlcs, but could their puppets give germany manpower?

It's possible, although I'm not aware of the AI using colonial divisions. If their compliance grows on non-core states, it gradually grants them higher manpower, but unless said non-cores are numerous and extremely populous, it's a slow and limited effect.

But it's probably not even necessary. As I calculated earlier, Scraping the Barrel + Desperate Defense will get it at 30% recruitable population. Base mobilization speed is 0.01% per day. If Germany were to switch to 30% recruitable population in january 1936 (which is impossible, obviously), assuming 50% WS, it wouldn't get its population fully mobilized before mid 1943. War support can increase mobilization speed, but don't expect it to become 1% a day.

It seems endless because it takes ages to mobilize. Wait a decade and their manpower should eventually stop growing. Or simply drain them of their equipments instead of manpower and then defeat them easily because their many divs will have basically no weapons to speak of, and thus terrible stats.

 

[assembly]

I took a screenshot from a typical attack where i couldn't break through 1 japanese division.
I was attacking from 4 different tiles (with 7inf + 2 art + full support) into this one division which was taking attrition. Ok they had air superiority helping them out, but 847 defence seems very much to me. I see defence stats of 1000 and more all the time.

@Simon_9732495
Thats exacly what i've been looking for. I'll give that a try with version 1.2 or 1.3 or something like that.

Thanks again for all your help.

 

[sudpud]

I took a screenshot from a typical attack where i couldn't break through 1 japanese division.
I was attacking from 4 different tiles (with 7inf + 2 art + full support) into this one division which was taking attrition. Ok they had air superiority helping them out, but 847 defence seems very much to me. I see defence stats of 1000 and more all the time.

View attachment 664132

@Simon_9732495
Thats exacly what i've been looking for. I'll give that a try with version 1.2 or 1.3 or something like that.

Thanks again for all your help.

So a few things here - you either aren't using 20wdths or have the mass mob doctrine which shrinks infantry combat width(notice it's 75, not 80). While the encirclement combat modifier is good, this isn't a crazy strong attack. You have 125 combat width available for additional divisions to attack. Lastly, the division you are attacking in entrenched, which grants defensive bonuses but requires you to not move as it builds up. That is why it's at 847.

Air superiority isn't trivial, and finally - you are attacking a mountain! That's a huge terrain penalty.

You should be attacking with 5 (25 brigade) infantry divisions. You will easily push that tile.

 

[Supremeleaderpies]

Right now with how the game works. the meta i have found that always provides success is Air. AIR IS KING. CAS plus Air superiority can absolutely obliterate divisions. Not to mention using spy planes to get the intel which gives the ai a debuff when defending.

Tanks are great if you can afford them, but you should always be building air.
Unless your doing some kind of AA focused army with Radar.

 

[Simon_9732495]

I took a screenshot from a typical attack where i couldn't break through 1 japanese division.
I was attacking from 4 different tiles (with 7inf + 2 art + full support) into this one division which was taking attrition. Ok they had air superiority helping them out, but 847 defence seems very much to me. I see defence stats of 1000 and more all the time.

Ok, with the screenshot we can see some reasons why you can't break that. Some have been listed already I'll list them again.

Maybe first: You can move your mouse over all the numbers in the screen. Then you get a popup that describes where the numbers come from.

Reasons why you can't push here:

• You're attacking into mountains. Try to find another spot.
• Enemy has Air superiority and CAS in the battle. You should have air superiority. If you can't add at least AntiAir to your divison. Air is REALLY important.
• You're attacking with infantry. Dont do this if it's not really necessary or the enemy is super weak. In the posting before you said you have Tanks. Attack with them. Armor, Breakthrough and Hardness are the most important Stats for attacking. You have none of the 3. A division with 5 Modern Tanks with 5 Mech is great in these 3 categories.
• You're not attacking with all your divisions at the same time. 2 divisions have already lost almost all organization. Attack with all 4 divisions with full org at the same time.
• You're not using the full combat with. Combat width is 200, you attack with 75. Bring more divisions. If you have trouble breaking you want to punch one hole first and then go from there.
• Enemy is entrenched in mountains. I said before try to find another spot. If that s not possible you could try to fall a bit back an wait until they start attacking. Then you counter them. Now they are at least not entrenched anymore.
• Dont look too much at the defense stat. You also deal damage when your attack is lower than the enemy defense. There are other stats that are more important.
• One of your division has 260 attack one only 193. If all 4 had 260 you'd have 1040 attack, which is easily over the defense. Bring them all at full strength, full experience, full planning bonus...

 

[safe-keeper]

To be fair, the battle window could really do with being reworked, or perhaps redesigned from the ground up. Important information like "this attack is going poorly because you're attacking into mountains" isn't clearly conveyed, and even the icons that are shown don't stand out enough against the barrage of other info in the battle window.

I'm thinking the icons and the generals' medals should switch places. This would make the important information more front-and-centre, and the medals would look better if they were below the generals.

Also, perhaps the numbers should be colour-coded. Green for particularly high/good numbers, red, perhaps flashing red, for problematic numbers, like the 800 defense of that Japanese division in the above screenshot.

Additionally, the generals and their portraits take up a lot of the screen, as if they are the focus of the battle - like it's a duel between two generals, and not a battle between divisions. It reminds me of the way you have a row (or several) of generals' portraits along the bottom of the screen the whole game.

 

[sudpud]

To be fair - people would critique any design of the battle window if it didn’t display what they wanted to see. Your suggestions here seem like it would make the window very “busy”.

 

[Vohen]

Honestly, I'd advise giving the current patch a chance before deciding to rollback.
Even if it'll take a bit of time to relearn some mechanics, I feel HoI4 is now a much, much better game than it was a couple years ago.
I imagine it's going to be especially daunting to learn the new naval system (I barely know what I'm doing there myself), but I'd say it'll all still be very much worth it in the end.