Editing divisions individually

[Kristian2]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've gotten the impression that in this game you can only upgrade divisions by upgrading every division of that type. If so, that's not ideal from a historical perspective. As I'm sure you're all aware, during WWII, many of the motorized infantry divisions were light infantry divisions earlier in the war, and some of the motorized infantry divisions became mechanized infantry divisions. The transition didn't happen to all infantry divisions and the transitions didn't all happen simultaneously. If my impression is correct, that would also mean that you can't attach new battalions or regiments as parts of some divisions, but not others nor exchange battalions or regiments between two divisions. That would be problematic, because for example, not every panzer division had nor should have had heavy armour units. It's not exactly a jack-of-all-trades kind of unit and it's rather expensive, therefore it shouldn't be applied universally to every panzer division.

 

[Dalnar]

Why not just clone existing template and make a new one which you can later apply to existing units ?

 

[ChaChaLoco]

Why not just clone existing template and make a new one which you can later apply to existing units ?

This is exactly what you would do. The division designer is made the way it is to avoid having to build individual brigades and then manually attach them to divisions like you did in HoI3. So let's say your default infantry division is 3 infantry and 1 artillery brigades but you later want to add an anti-tank brigade for whatever reason. All you have to do now is change the division and build the required equipment and your divisions will automatically update. If you want to keep your old divisions, simply clone the division template and edit it accordingly to add in the new anti-tank brigades. That is my understanding of it, at least.

 

[Kristian2]

So can I choose an individual division and apply a different template to it, while the rest of the divisions of the same type retain their form? Also, does cloning a template cost army experience?

 

[goliard20]

the cloning is free
you can also swith individual divisions to another type, like inf to tank, but this reduces their experience.

 

[seldon]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've gotten the impression that in this game you can only upgrade divisions by upgrading every division of that type. If so, that's not ideal from a historical perspective. As I'm sure you're all aware, during WWII, many of the motorized infantry divisions were light infantry divisions earlier in the war, and some of the motorized infantry divisions became mechanized infantry divisions. The transition didn't happen to all infantry divisions and the transitions didn't all happen simultaneously. If my impression is correct, that would also mean that you can't attach new battalions or regiments as parts of some divisions, but not others nor exchange battalions or regiments between two divisions. That would be problematic, because for example, not every panzer division had nor should have had heavy armour units. It's not exactly a jack-of-all-trades kind of unit and it's rather expensive, therefore it shouldn't be applied universally to every panzer division.

It isn't not hard to do what you want. First, make a duplicate of the existing units template then make what ever changes (e.g. adding a recon company, and a couple of artillery battalions), next select which ever existing units you want to upgrade and upgrade them. As you get more equipment you can upgrade more units. For instance, while I expect virtually every one of my German line infantry will have an artillery company and recon company. I expect to make an assault division which 4 has artillery, an engineer, and field hospital, in addition to the standard 9 infantry battalion, recon company, and support artillery company. Only a small number of my divisions will be assault divisions.

Swapping regiments is cumbersome but possible. Say you have enough super heavy tanks for only 1-2 regiments (300-600) tanks. You can create a template where you add the Superheavy regiment, upgrade the division. After the fight is done you can detach the regiment but downgrading the division back to its original template, and upgrading another division. Now I suspect there will be an experience penalty, and perhaps organization but it is certainly doable.

 

[Kristian2]

Knowing that I can select individual units and apply a different template for them has put my mind at ease about this. Still wish I could swap units between divisions the way I can in hearts of iron 3, but it's no big deal because I wouldn't do that much anyway. Thanks for the answers.

 

[podcat]

So can I choose an individual division and apply a different template to it, while the rest of the divisions of the same type retain their form? Also, does cloning a template cost army experience?

yup this is the best way. and cloning is free

 

[Serensius]

Maybe I'm being dense but this isn't entirely clear to me:

If I'm playing as Italy, and I want to increase the number of brigades in a division from two to three, is there a way to do that without training more units? That is, can I split up my 39 binary divisions and turn them into 26 tertiary divsions?

 

[eddyill]

Maybe I'm being dense but this isn't entirely clear to me:

If I'm playing as Italy, and I want to increase the number of brigades in a division from two to three, is there a way to do that without training more units? That is, can I split up my 39 binary divisions and turn them into 26 tertiary divsions?

You can increase the division template to 3 brigades, then disband 13 divisions and the men will return to the pool then reinforce the now understrength remaining division.

 

[Daddl]

If you just add a brigade to the template you don't need to train these units. But they lower the experience level the division had before.

If you want to maintain thr same number of brigades in total you would have to abandon 13 divisions after doing that. There is no harm in doing that other than your troops loosing experience, everyhing else is going to the stockpile.

At least I think the game doesn't track how many men which had experience before are back in the overall pool.

 

[Serensius]

You can increase the division template to 3 brigades, then disband 13 divisions and the men will return to the pool then reinforce the now understrength remaining division.

Ah that answers my question. Amazing! The worst thing about playing is Italy in HoI 3 was spending half an hour undoing the work that Italian leaders put in to f*ck up their army

 

[Ricox]

Ah that answers my question. Amazing! The worst thing about playing is Italy in HoI 3 was spending half an hour undoing the work that Italian leaders put in to f*ck up their army

Indeed. Another good thing is that disbanding divisions doesn't suddenly wipe everything off the face of the planet. Disbanding air wings, divisions etc. puts all the equipment & manpower (planes for air wings) back into the reserve pool so you can immediately put it into another division, air wing etc. (EDIT - just to clarify, this doesn't seem to apply to naval ships, they don't have any reserves - what is on the map is on the map)

 

[ChaChaLoco]

Indeed. Another good thing is that disbanding divisions doesn't suddenly wipe everything off the face of the planet. Disbanding air wings, divisions etc. puts all the equipment & manpower back into the reserve pool so you can immediately put it into another division, air wing etc.

Will it remove any experience those units had accrued, though?

EDIT: Nevermind, just read the comment above and it seems that they would. Will this be a big issue? Maybe not for Italy because many of their divisions are pretty inexperienced (at least they were in HoI3) but Germany had a few quite experienced divisions in the HoI3 1936 start.

 

[Ricox]

Will it remove any experience those units had accrued, though?

EDIT: Nevermind, just read the comment above and it seems that they would. Will this be a big issue? Maybe not for Italy because many of their divisions are pretty inexperienced (at least they were in HoI3) but Germany had a few quite experienced divisions in the HoI3 1936 start.

Yeah, not a good idea for Germany. In HoI IV most if not all of their divisions start at the Regular experience level (which is the maximum you can attain from exercising & pre-deployment training, the rest comes with combat, I guess). You would have to re-train all the units when they're in the pre-deployment stage as a result.

 

[AmpsterMan]

Thing is, since training soldiers and building equipment are both separate things now, there really isn't a reason to just edit the template to have a triangular structure and have reinforcement and equipment funnel itself to your divisions.

As for the OP. I can see myself making different division types with different equipment. For example, a militia division would be the same as a standard division, but with less support brigades and using older weapons. A garrison brigade might have an MP unit attached, etc.

The fact that copying divisions are free even means you can have three copies of the same division with different reinforcement levels. I.e. Elite Riflemen Divisions get the best equipment, regular riflemen get normal priority, basic get old and are last in line. Having these three different divisions costs zero army experience so there are no penalties to this level of minutae.

 

[ChaChaLoco]

Thing is, since training soldiers and building equipment are both separate things now, there really isn't a reason to just edit the template to have a triangular structure and have reinforcement and equipment funnel itself to your divisions.

What do you mean by this? We shouldn't edit the template to add in a particular brigade and have all the existing divisions reinforce to that level?

 

[AmpsterMan]

What do you mean by this? We shouldn't edit the template to add in a particular brigade and have all the existing divisions reinforce to that level?

I was referencing the post that talked about how you can't combine divisions and brigades like in HoI 3. What i was saying is that that's not needed anymore because we can just edit a template, and any units with that template will automatically reinforce

 

[flar]

Nonetheless i would prefer to checkbox specific divisions itself to upgrade yes or no instead of using the division designer.