Ofc not. That would be bad. Currently I use the army group command to make sure I get the plannign bonus. Then manually controll my divisions. Unless I am attacking Finland with 120 divisions or so.
Just simply can't take France.
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Ofc not. That would be bad. Currently I use the army group command to make sure I get the plannign bonus. Then manually controll my divisions. Unless I am attacking Finland with 120 divisions or so.
Not sure where you're getting your history, but what Black Shade did is very much historical. It's VERY similar to what the actual Germans did to beat the actual French in Summer of 1940. They used Guderian's "Schwerpunkt" (Eng "Spearhead") to concentrate armor at a single breakthrough point. They did that through the Ardennes forest, which is roughly Lux/Bel.
If what he didn't isn't historical enough for ya, I don't know what would be. I'd also recommend you read Guderian.
Ok, fine, so put a Panzer division in every Army to meet your "Historical Immersion" qualifications and actually use them like how they were used Historically, like @wesleytj pointed out.
This whole thread is 5 Pages of people telling you that you need to stop hitting the Go button and use your Panzers correctly.
But I never hit the GO button. Its just that when I meet mountains of UK divisions in Belgium. There is no way any to break through that. Even by using only my tanks. In any condition that I met pre 1.5 where there was much less allied forces in Belgium I would of course fully agree with you.
Ofc and I have read him. And I am fully aware of his strategy. But he did not command a army of 24 armor divisions or so in his own army group.
And yet everyone that took your save suggests otherwise....you're either a Liar, or seriously hopeless.
There was certainly one good thing that came from this thread, im now very thankful for the Balance changes done in this patch.
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Given what he said during Barbarossa and as Inspector General of Armored Forces, if there were 24 full strength armored divisions ready for France, he would have wanted them as concentrated as possible (logistics might limit this) for the breakthrough and/or pincer movements.
Okay, so what we have here is Allied forces putting up an unhistorically competent defence of Belgium and you not compensating for this by focusing your armor because of role play? Did you suspect that this might be a solution to your problems all along?
I sometimes wonder, when reading calls for historical accuracy such as these, what exactly you allow yourself to change. Surely you allow yourself some leeway? Why can't the number of armored divisions be one of them?
I mean: I absolutely agree that it should be fairly easy for Germany to rush around the Maginot for historical reasons. Maybe one even could imagine some restriction to the British involvement there, if it really is a problem. Maybe even some temporary boost to German troops or some stat rebalancing. Always interesting to discuss these things.
But this thread confuses me a bit, because you are not actually just saying that you think the Allies are too good at defending and it destroys your immersion, but that you, an experienced player, were actually not able, after several tries, to at all break through their lines.
One question this thread raises for me: how do you guys make use of all the nifty "auto battle planning" functionalities?
In my experience, as long as one has a strong advantage, you can pretty much just tell the Army Group commander to go form up his four five armies over there on that front, assign some offensives, wait till they are prepped, click Go and watch it unfold.
I've mowed down Poland, must be 4 or 5 times now, and that is pretty much how I did it.
In contrast, putting them up against a more difficult opponent where the balance is more even and the computer doesn't seem to do so well. The other deficiency of the computer planner is, he will leave behind pockets of weak forces and if you don't manually encircle them with some excess leg INF or other "cheap" units they will start reestablishing a foothold behind your front.
ADDIT: also, that Western front for Germany is annoying: three different national boundaries make it difficult to use anything except the Fall Back Line command and I'm not entirely confident of how well that functions.
In my experience, as long as one has a strong advantage, you can pretty much just tell the Army Group commander to go form up his four five armies over there on that front, assign some offensives, wait till they are prepped, click Go and watch it unfold.
I've mowed down Poland, must be 4 or 5 times now, and that is pretty much how I did it.
In contrast, putting them up against a more difficult opponent where the balance is more even and the computer doesn't seem to do so well. The other deficiency of the computer planner is, he will leave behind pockets of weak forces and if you don't manually encircle them with some excess leg INF or other "cheap" units they will start reestablishing a foothold behind your front.
ADDIT: also, that Western front for Germany is annoying: three different national boundaries make it difficult to use anything except the Fall Back Line command and I'm not entirely confident of how well that functions.
That you can't move from one country to another (Luxembourg to Belgium, The Netherlands to Belgium) is the most annoying thing abouty the battle planner. I use the battle planner for Poland and the USSR, but I just make a battle plan and cancel it for France and the Low Countries.
Heh, "make a battel plan and cancel it" Yeah I have been doing that sometimes too. But then I have to stop and ask myself, "Did I really save any time or effort?"
German player setting up for Fall Gelb is a good example of this. In one play, I micro-managed everything, paused constantly, constantly monitored air superiority, pre-positioned each army and division, etc., and only used "plans" at the Division level (I assume if they are following a plan they get combat bonii?). Even so, by watching very closely, I noticed the computer doing what to me seemed like strange stuff. Example: I set up a "spearhead" with a tank army comprising 6 or 7 Div through Luxembourg and one or two hexes beyond. They did great for the first hex, but then they deviated from the actual path I drew and split the army to go in two different directions. It was at that point, I tried to take "manual control" and realized: as long as the plan is in effect, they will keep trying to do their own thing. Still haven't figured out how to delete the offensive or spearhead plan and keep the "defensive front" command. I get the impression maybe that isn't possible? The sense I have is that an army has only one plan at a time: but in order to set up an offensive plan, they first have to have a defensive plan?
Having not played any previous HOI games, I'm not sure how "revolutionary" this system is compared to past editions of the series, but from my perspective it is quite a nice system. It has its flaws and its utility in "difficult" command contexts seems questionable, but nonetheless a very well-done and fun system.
Probably the single most important game mechanic it allows (I assume this is the case) is to use a high decryption/detection/intell ability to "see" the enemies battle plans before he executes them?
German player setting up for Fall Gelb is a good example of this. In one play, I micro-managed everything, paused constantly, constantly monitored air superiority, pre-positioned each army and division, etc., and only used "plans" at the Division level (I assume if they are following a plan they get combat bonii?). Even so, by watching very closely, I noticed the computer doing what to me seemed like strange stuff. Example: I set up a "spearhead" with a tank army comprising 6 or 7 Div through Luxembourg and one or two hexes beyond. They did great for the first hex, but then they deviated from the actual path I drew and split the army to go in two different directions. It was at that point, I tried to take "manual control" and realized: as long as the plan is in effect, they will keep trying to do their own thing. Still haven't figured out how to delete the offensive or spearhead plan and keep the "defensive front" command. I get the impression maybe that isn't possible? The sense I have is that an army has only one plan at a time: but in order to set up an offensive plan, they first have to have a defensive plan?
Having not played any previous HOI games, I'm not sure how "revolutionary" this system is compared to past editions of the series, but from my perspective it is quite a nice system. It has its flaws and its utility in "difficult" command contexts seems questionable, but nonetheless a very well-done and fun system.
Probably the single most important game mechanic it allows (I assume this is the case) is to use a high decryption/detection/intell ability to "see" the enemies battle plans before he executes them?
I played a fair bit of Darkest Hour and I think that is the high point of the Hoi series. Hoi3 was also better than Hoi4 although I thought the research system was a but complicated. Hoi3 also has a lot of issue working with Win10.
Hoi4 feels more like EUIV and CK2 than it does the earlier Hoi games.
Heh! Oh God, I hope I don't turn this into one of those "The Version I like Is Better!" threads!
There is a game that the battle planner in this game reminds me of a bit: Jagged Alliance Back in Action. Squad-based mercenary combat game. Sadly seemed to have been rushed out the door before it got proper love and polishing and the developer doesn't seem to have anything to do with it any longer. But a good game! (there are a couple mods one can track down that fix the most egregious problems).
That one was also real-time pauseable and you could assign orders to squad members and also set them to act in synchronicity and then hit play and watch them pawn the computer opponents.
The part of that game mechanic I always felt was lacking (and the same is true for this one in HoI4) is: in addition to the "1 to 10x" time slider and pausing, a slow-mo branch to the time slider would be nice. Maybe go from 1 down to 1/4 or 1/8?
Probably not quite as important in this game, but in JABIA, you never really got to savor the animations and sounds of your well-planned squad tactics because once you clicked go the action unfolded at "real time" speed which means the battle might well be decided within a couple seconds!
You don't need to optimize production to beat France. Put 15-20 Inf division (doesn't even matter if 20width or just standard inf) on Maginot, all you need then is 20-30 more divisions to take down Belgium, Luxemburg and France. Breakthrough is important, so you really want Panzer III (first medium tanks). I have 5-10 divisions of them by Oct 39 (5 med tanks, 2 mot inf, 2 SA Art). Those are my breakthrough divisions throughout the entire game. Also make sure to have other fast division, 20 mot inf (standard starting mot inf suffice, add recon and pioneers, maybe art and I kinda like field hospitals, because I want to keep losses down) will do and you still have 3 light tank division from the start of the game. That's really all you need. Put 6-8 inf on the Beglium border and plan. Put all your tanks and the 20 mot inf on the luxemburg border and plan. Make sure to setup your airforce: As many CAS as possible in Benelux (with air superiority of course, build larger airfields before war in 39) and some fighters over France (air superiority avoids speed malus). Once finished planning, DOW Luxemburg and make sure to attack with your breakthrough divisions first, so they are in the battle and not the Mot Inf. Luxemburg should last 2-3 hours. Make sure to simultaneously attack Metz with 2-3 divisions to pin them down. As your stack moves to Luxemburg, DOW Belgium and pin them down with an attack with the 6-8 divisions you have at their border. Move through the one Belgium province of Wallonie (again: attack with Panzers only, let others join the fight after Panzers have engaged), there should not be any UK troops there. Maybe there are some Belgians, but they will be crushed by Panzers. Once you set foot in the one Belgium province, just spread your units all over the field. I like to do a Panzer rush down south to encircle the Maginot line (always make sure to have the rivers on the right side of your divisions!) but it really isn't necessary (and kind of costly, because your 15-20 Maginot divisions have to attack the line in order to keep the units there which will cost you equipment and manpower). A couple of units go through Belgium and cut the still fighting Belgium frontline troops off supply, the rest wanders through France like the Geisterdivision. France is beat within 2 weeks max with 20k losses, make sure to occupy airports in France with your CAS and fighters as well.
EDIT: SA-Art is Self propelled Art.
EDIT2: Forgot: always go for the attack boost when breaking through and choose Rommel as leader of breakthrough units because of his attack skill.
EDIT: SA-Art is Self propelled Art.
EDIT2: Forgot: always go for the attack boost when breaking through and choose Rommel as leader of breakthrough units because of his attack skill.
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Where is this "Self-Propelled" artillery in the tech trees? Do you mean the artillery companies Germany starts the game with (and which do not add to width or effect speed)?
I'm guessing I need to move down the Sd.Kfz tech path further than I have! They are probably down that way eh!?
I'm guessing I need to move down the Sd.Kfz tech path further than I have! They are probably down that way eh!?
Maybe I'm misinterpreting the way the colors change on the air map, but I'm finding that I want to have more like 3000 or maybe even 4000 fighters by the time I take on Fall Gelb.
Last time I did it, I had if memory serves 1200 or 1300 fighters on Air Superiority + Interception flying over Benelux. I had level 1 Radar in every nearby German hex, I had decryption way advanced (not that that would necessarily impact the sigint involved in combat air patrols . . .), and I STILL was unable to get Air Superiority to "click" in my combats in Holland and Belgium.