Playing as the UK - Ideas

[unmerged(76390)]

Got back into this game after a few years of not being able to play it after a Steam update that prevented it from being run on my laptop. Been reading through the forum and you guys are great. So much info in here!

I've done a few campaigns but have stopped mid way through after watching videos on play throughs. Right now in my UK play through it's going pretty well, but I'm curious what is the best route(s) to go. In one play through I went heavy, I mean like almost entirely motorized INF except for a few of my British Indian divisions. Is it better to even it out? I went after Persia early in the war to puppet them and get their oil, but really struggled with the motorized units (duh, mountainous terrain). So that begs the question, what's the best route for the British army?

In terms of economy, I really focus on infrastructure in a handful of ports to max it out (Malta, Gibraltar, Alexandria, Singapore, and Rangoon) plus hitting up my home provinces. That allows me to really get my navy back out there quickly. In a separate campaign I went super heavy on IC to the point it really cost me because my resources were too small to keep up. So is there an ideal number of IC to add?

Lastly, in terms of air makeup, is there any real benefit to go heavy on strategic bombers?

 

[unmerged(76390)]

Got back into this game after a few years of not being able to play it after a Steam update that prevented it from being run on my laptop. Been reading through the forum and you guys are great. So much info in here!

I've done a few campaigns but have stopped mid way through after watching videos on play throughs. Right now in my UK play through it's going pretty well, but I'm curious what is the best route(s) to go. In one play through I went heavy, I mean like almost entirely motorized INF except for a few of my British Indian divisions. Is it better to even it out? I went after Persia early in the war to puppet them and get their oil, but really struggled with the motorized units (duh, mountainous terrain). So that begs the question, what's the best route for the British army?

In terms of economy, I really focus on infrastructure in a handful of ports to max it out (Malta, Gibraltar, Alexandria, Singapore, and Rangoon) plus hitting up my home provinces. That allows me to really get my navy back out there quickly. In a separate campaign I went super heavy on IC to the point it really cost me because my resources were too small to keep up. So is there an ideal number of IC to add?

Lastly, in terms of air makeup, is there any real benefit to go heavy on strategic bombers?

In terms of the IC question, what does one IC cost per each resource? I can calculate what I have available to see how much IC to add.

I'm doing a USA play too and just spending the first 4 years building IC and infrastructure with a smattering of naval units.

 

[50shadesofgreen]

Each effective IC needs 2 energy, 1 metal and half a rare.

So be mindfull that if you plan for 200 effective IC you will need 400 energy daily, BUT each boost to the IC tech will push your effective IC to ever larger heights.


Full Mot are useful for high speed blitz campaigns, otherwise I would think you are just using up fuel and IC? Fine if you have plenty.

I build up the 4th UK strategic bomber, but leave it there. If you know what you are doing it's too easy to devastate the AI, who's not really equipped to cope with this strategy.

 

[unmerged(76390)]

Each effective IC needs 2 energy, 1 metal and half a rare.

So be mindfull that if you plan for 200 effective IC you will need 400 energy daily, BUT each boost to the IC tech will push your effective IC to ever larger heights.


Full Mot are useful for high speed blitz campaigns, otherwise I would think you are just using up fuel and IC? Fine if you have plenty.

I build up the 4th UK strategic bomber, but leave it there. If you know what you are doing it's too easy to devastate the AI, who's not really equipped to cope with this strategy.

All good info and I appreciate it.

As I'm just getting back into the game I'm just scratching the surface on logistics so I really need to be mindful there.

When you say you build a 4th bomber, you mean you just roll with 4 strat bomber wings for the war?

 

[roverS3]

Let's go one by one.

Motorising nearly everything is historically accurate for the UK, but it's not necessarily the best move because it's expensive, and Mot does use fuel and takes some worse terrain penalties. imo if you're going to spend that much, it would be better to upgrade a few Corps to Mot, leaving the rest as Inf, and add some Tank Divisions (Arm, Mot,...) to give you a few very punchy divisions. I'd also recommend building several Divisions of Royal Marines and a few landing craft for your amphibious operations. In any case, Britain needs a variety of different unit types to deal with the different terrain types and opponents it faces. As you pointed out, it might have been a good idea to build .

Maxing out the infrastructure in your main ports can make sense. Maxing out the Naval Base has to be the priority, but then maxing out the infra does help for org regain, so that's a good move.

How much IC to build is a question with multiple answers. First the question of resources:

The trade system in HOI3 allows for a lot of IC building if you plan ahead. If you have so much IC that you can't supply it with resources, you sell excess resources, fuel or supplies to get what you need. In theory, you can do this into the infinite, sell supplies to buy resources to fuel your factories which produce more supplies. Of course, there is a limit to the amount of resources other nations can sell you, though it is rather high if you're the UK, because you can buy from both the USA and the Soviet Union for most of the game. There is also a limit on the amount of supplies you can sell etc. Now, a strategy based on industrial expansion beyond what your resources allows does require lots of convoys, especially for an Island nation, and a lot of diplomatic points to manage all that trade. You can of course also do the reverse. If you'd rather not build a lot of new factories, you can sell excess resources in order to buy supplies. All the supplies you buy you don't have to produce. The upper limit here is obviously the amount of supplies your armed forces consume. Another way to make lots of money is to buy crude and sell fuel. (as long as you use less fuel than you can convert) Now, if you're part of the Axis, you're going to have resource shortages during the war, so it's going to be crucial to build up massive stockpiles of what you cannot produce in sufficient quantities, so Oil, rare materials, metal, etc. depending on which axis member you play.

Second the question of pay-off:

If you have near unlimited resources (USA or USSR), or if you're going for the trade-heavy approach, you then start to wonder when to stop building IC and switch to building up your army. This is calculated based on the cost of your IC and how long it will take to build, it comes down to how long the IC will take to pay for itself:

( IC Production cost x IC Production time ) / (total IC / base IC) + IC Production time = time from start of IC construction for the IC to fully pay for itself.

So, say your factories cost 5 IC over 400 days and with laws and tech improvements, you have a total +50% IC modifier:

( 5 x 400) / 1,5 (or 150%) = 1333 days or 3.65 years, or 3 years, 7 months, 25 days.

Of course, this calculation does not take into account changes in laws, Industrial production tech improvements, and increased construction practical values. It is thus a guideline which is usually conservative. As a general rule of thumb you should build your IC as early as possible (but still taking into account units with long lead times, i.e. capital ships which will also have to be started long before the war for them to be delivered on time etc.) Ideally, if resources aren't an issue, you want to make sure the last IC you build is paid off around the time you expect a major war to start. This means should have built up the same amount as you would have if you didn't build extra IC, and you can now likely outbuild and out-reinforce your enemies.

It should be noted that if you go beyond your resource limits with trading, you should also factor in the fact that you're going to have to sell off part of the IC's output in the form of supplies to make it run, so it will take longer to pay for itself. How much longer? depends on how much you get for your supplies and how much you pay for your resource imports...

As for going heavy into strategic bombers. It's honestly a bit OP. Someone on this forum did a playthrough a few years ago where Britain built nothing but Strategic bombers and basically, they ended up destroying all of the infrastructure on the German side of the French border stopping the Wehrmacht in it's tracks due to supply issues, and then bombing the German industry into rubble... Then you win the war when the Soviets steamroll a weakened Germany. (the french can't do much because the destroyed infrastructure doesn't allow them to supply a push into Germany) All without ground troops.

 

[Kovax]

Excellent post, which covers the IC and Strat issues quite well.

There are other considerations about building ground troops, like "where will they be deployed?" The UK using MOT in the jungles of Burma isn't going to fare well, nor will MIL hold up against Italian troops in North Africa. The UK needs a wide variety of troop types, including several different ones within in each Theater. The beauty of this game is that there are very few "best choices", but a number of different things which will work in each specific case, and others that won't, even though they're "optimal" for some other situation. Fortunately, the UK doesn't need to go toe-to-toe with GER on the ground, so it doesn't require a huge land army.

INF is relatively inexpensive, uses no Fuel, and is one of the most resilient units in the game on defense. In most cases (the UK and US are exceptions to some degree), it should be the majority of your land army. MOT, ARM, and possibly CAV (in backwater areas where supply is a problem) should be your exploitation units, AFTER the INF has broken through (possibly with the assistance of some ARM). Breaking the enemy's front line with an Armor-heavy force is costly (both to purchase and to maintain and repair), and leaves the units used with a long Attack Delay until they can move and utilize their mobility, which is why you built them. The object is NOT to drive the enemy back, but to drive through the enemy lines to cut off isolated pockets and eliminate them, otherwise you'll just end up fighting against the same units over and over again as they regain ORG and return to the front.

Note that special forces can serve as multipliers in specific situations, but are often at a disadvantage in other cases. AT is a prime example, where it's cheap and reasonably effective against enemy Armor, but is next to useless against soft targets, which are the VAST MAJORITY of what they will end up shooting at. Use them where needed, but don't overuse them in every division. ENG is the same situation, where it's highly effective in assaults on urban centers, fortresses, and river crossings, but one of the weakest units in the game in open terrain (although still significantly better than AT against soft targets). MTN in mountains and hills, and MAR in jungles, for amphibious landings, and against soft targets are also useful, but with glaring weaknesses against ARM.

A thought about building IC or ships: each completed unit increases your Practical value for that type of unit or building, so each additional unit takes less time and IC/days to complete. If you start constructing 10 factories, and they all complete on the same day, you've paid full price for each of them. If you let a few of them lag behind, when the first one completes, the rest will have their completion times adjusted and the others will change their completion dates, saving you several IC/days of production on each unit still in the production queue. The higher your existing Practical value, the less effect it has, but at the low values at the start of the game, this can be significant. For example, if GER builds IC, the first one to complete can speed up the second by close to a week, which in turn will speed up the third by an additional 4-6 days, and so on. The total savings on 10 of them can amount to getting about half of a factory or more for free. This is even more pronounced with capital ships, where GER has a low Practical value, and the first BC or BB can knock 4-6 months off the completion date of the second. Having the second in the queue set up to complete at the same time or only a few days later will waste that benefit, so it pays to space them out and suffer the additional micromanagement. It can be worth building a BC or two just to speed up construction of any BBs you decide to build. That way, I research one round of capital ship techs before starting construction on new BBs, and they will be available by the time war breaks out. This is less of a potential issue for the UK, which I believe already has a significant Capital Ship Practical value.

I recall one Spanish Civil War situation where the Nationalists got NO aircraft, and the Republicans bombed the Nationalists down to their base 5 IC. It was a completely one-sided war after the bombers did their work. The UK can bomb an AI GER into the stone age, by drawing out GER's INT and doing enough damage to keep it grounded for repairs while the bombers do their thing, but will potentially suffer badly against a human opponent who will keep those defensive fighters back beyond the range of UK fighters.

 

[hugo_O]

Hello there I recently had very good experiences as a world conquest UK on very hard. It was a custom game, but div building should still apply.

If you plan to let Ger take out France, lots of Mot and Arm are not required. If you do want to save France, fast Arm would be better.
I abandoned everyone to reconquer them later with specialized light forces where and when they very needed.

My workhorses were "Light Infantry Corps" without many support brigades and "Light Armored Corps" with 3 LArm Divisions and 2 Arm Divisions as backup.

The reasoning is that you will be fighting a lot in bad terrain and bad Infrastructure against weaker and exposed enemies, so you only need a couple of heavy Divisions here and there. If you find yourself lacking in firepower, you might be overstretched. Hold the line in one theatre with minimal specialized Divisions and ship in reinforcments to a Front you can finish fast, then use those freed forces to strike back somewhere else.

UK lacks Manpower to hold every Front simultaneously with "general purpose" Divisions. Arm would be the obvious choice to conserve MP, but drains supply, underperforms in bad terrain, and results in you having less total Divisions, which is bad if you want to attack the SU.
So I went with mostly 4xInf, LArm and Special Forces for offense that get switched out with 3xInf with Support Brigades and Arm for defense on favourable chokepoints.

My Corps Setups: (All HQs were reinforced with 2xInf+Art and (+At) with Superior Firepower)

"Light Inf Corps"
3 Div of 4xInf
1 Div of 3xInf+Art
1 Div of 3xInf+At

The last Division with At was unnecessary, as kovax explained, I kept it in case I needed those Corps later against Ger, US and Sov, or against surprise Armor, but by this time I had enough "Heavy Inf Corps" with more AT.
Any other Brigade would have been more useful, another Art or Inf or AC or Eng, or even just 3xInf to be honest.
I had 3 such Corps ready for the war and one more to build. Then I focused on "Heavy Inf Corps"

4xInf can easily deal with anything except Arm and in any Terrain. The downside is the high use of Manpower. Air Power is absolutely needed to keep casualties low and 4×Inf should never be wasted to starve or freeze in hostile occupied terrain.

To Hold the Line, I instead used "Heavy Inf Corps":

2 Div of 3xInf+Art
1 Div of 3xInf+At
1 Div of 4xInf
1 Div of 2xInf+Art+At(+Inf with SF)

This is a more defensive build that holds what the Light Inf conquered, and later as Line Infantry against Ger and Sov.
Might even go with 2xInf+2xArt to further save manpower and frontage.
The single 4xInf is nice for counter offensives with river crossings or mountains.

I had two ready for war and kept building those, as my need to Hold the Line increased with each new theatre my light troops engaged in.

I had 2 "Light Arm Corps" that did most of the actual fighting and not only exploitation all over the world where mobility was key.

2 Div of LArm+Mot+AC
1 Div of LArm+Mot+Eng
1 Div of Arm+Mot+TD+Eng
1 Div of Arm+Mot+TD+Ac

The LArm is strong enough to tip the balance in a hard battle by joining from the flank.
The Arm is used whenever my Light forces were not enough and in case enemy Arm shows up.
I found the Eng really, really helped with its mobility bonus to cross bad terrain and rivers, even though this Div is slower on plains and weak in a straight fight, but that was not its purpose. You fight to win quicker, not to win in a fair fight. For this, you sometimes need to be fast even when going through mountains.

I thought about adding SpArt later, but that would have been bad in the Terrain those Corps were fighting in. I swapped the Mot for Mech for fighting the SU though.

I had two more Corps of 4 Div with Arm and 1 Div Larm ready when I wanted to take on Germany with one more corps ready for the USA.

This was supplemented with 1 Corps of Marines (3 Div 4xMar, 1 Div 3xMar+Arm(+Mar), 1 Div 2xInf+Art+At(+Inf)),
1 Corps of Mountaineers (4 Div 4xMtn, 1 Div 2xInf+Art+At(+Inf)),
and one Corps of general purpose Special Forces (1 Div 4xMar, 1 Div 4xMtn, 2 Div 4x Par, 1 Div 2xInf+Art+At(+Inf),

Later i built another one more of each Corps.

As you can see, my Corps were standardized to be shipped around where they were needed, with different Divs that do one thing well. Each Corps had at least some capacity to hold a Province well, deal with Arm or attack in bad Terrain.

4xInf seem to be quite underappreciated in the Forum. Their downsides are:
- High MP usage (definitely bad for UK, they must be supplemented with planes and specialists),
- high frontage (not an issue if used correctly),
- high officer usage (UK can deal with that),
- do not excel in anything (again, supplement with specialists when and where needed),
- too expensive to use as just a "filler" division that closes a gap in the Front without fighting,
- slow in plains,
- not perfectly efficient in the big end game war vs. the SU
- boring

But I think the upsides count more for UK specifically:
- beats any non-Arm-Division that the AI uses 1 on 1.
- holds provinces very well until specialized reinforcments arrive if outnumbered
- holds long enough for your air forces to make an impact
- contributes in any terrain except forts, gives you the ability to attack in any direction
- can perform lightly contested landings
- faster then Inf+Support in bad terrain
- cheaper and faster to build then Mar and Mtn for regions where you don't want to commit those.

To be honest, you probably don't need to be that elaborate and could just spam 3×Inf divisions and build a few Corps of Arm, Larm and Mar with a similiar strategy: Use the specialists to win hard fights, swap them out with Inf to hold the line in favourable defensive positions, and use your specialists to win a different theatre, then come back with your freed up troops.

That means, more important then division building is to choose your battles cleverly. Use whatever troops are good enough in one theatre to slightly outgun your enemy, gain lots of experience in battle and use your freed up, battle hardened troops to gain the advantage in progressively harder battles in a different theatre

Hope that helps!

 

[GarfunkeL]

While @hugo_O makes a case for 4x INF, they are pretty bad - the cons definitely outweigh the pros. Yes, they are good defensively because they can take a lot of beating before they are decimated but they can still lose their organization just as fast as any other division which will force them to retreat anyway.

Use 2xINF 2/3x Support for maximum frontage/firepower use or 3xINF 1/2x Support for maximum survivability/defensiveness use, or even a combination of both:

Offensive Corps:
1xHQ, 2xINF, 2x ART (one at first, second with Superior Firepower)
5 divisions of 2xINF 1x ART 1x support
or
5 divisions of 2xINF 2xART

Have the whole corps fight as one "unit" as much as possible. You'll get lot of combined arms bonus, the frontage works in every possible situation. The HQ division is bit weaker but it can still pack a punch with its two artillery brigades. You can attack with all 6 divisions from one province to another or split them over 2 or 3 divisions to get flanking bonuses. It's also easier to keep track of the divisions because you can Ctrl+LMB the Corps HQ and thus order all divisions to attack together regardless of whether they are on different provinces. If you have the IC and MP, you can add another support brigade to the divisions later.

Defensive Corps:
1x HQ, 2xMOT, 1xTD, 1xSPART
4 divisions of 3xINF 1xART 1xs support

This corps can defend either 2 or 4 provinces with the HQ division acting as mobile reserve that you bring in if one battle is going badly. It can also do well on offense but if you add a fifth division, it'll take too much frontage and one or two divisions will be left out when attacking. However, you can include a fifth division if you plan on having two of these corps defending side-by-side, as then the fifth-wheels of two corps can defend a province together and thus it doesn't matter if your reserve division is too far to help quickly.

Exploitation Corps:
1x HQ 1x LARM 1x MOT 1x SPART 1x AC
3 divisions of 1xARM 1x MEC 1x MOT (upgrade to MEC when you have the IC 1x SPART 1x support as per situation
2 divisions of 1xLARM 1x MOT 1x AC 1x support as per situation that doesn't slow them down

As @Kovax said, you don't want to just push the enemy back as their divisions will regain their strength and organization, forcing you to fight them again and again. This corps will drive ahead after your offensive corps have punched a hole in the enemy line and then wreck HQ's unit, take airbases, and form encirclements. The divisions with LARM are meant for maximum speed on good terrain, hence the use of AC. The divisions with ARM are meant to counter enemy heavy units as well as help maintaining the encirclement as the AI will always go maximum counterattack mode when you complete a kassel/motti.

This sort of structure also means that you can make an Army out of 5 corps: 2x offensive, 2x defensive, 1x exploitation. Keeps your organization tidy and if you do end up in major land war in Europe, either against Germany or the USSR or both, you can then expand to another army and even a third if you can, and each Army can have its independent operations. Alternatively, you can create offensive/exploitation armies and separate defensive armies. North-Africa only has room for 1 army, whereas Europe has room for like four armies or even more. Not sure if you can supply even a single such army in Burma or China, maybe not.

In which case you can use special corps organization in such places. It's where 2x CAV + 1x ENG can do really well, alongside normal infantry divisions, as well as 3x MAR + 1x ENG, or maybe a 3x MNT + 1x ENG. Engineers are weak but at least they will help mitigate the awful terrain bonuses to an extent.

The only division that really benefits from having 4 or even 5-line brigades is PARA. In case they get dropped on top of an enemy division or they have to defend themselves for an extended period of time, combined with their usually pretty high ORG, means they can withstand a long time before succumbing. You'll just need more transport planes.

With the caveat that I can't even remember when I played vanilla HoI3 so my memory might be failing me and/or I'm talking more about modded games.

 

[50shadesofgreen]

For those who went beyond the conquest of Germany and set their sights on invading Russia, are there any pitfalls to watch out for. Did you just retain German territory or did an event fire to create a German puppet once the Axis was over?

 

[GarfunkeL]

The big issue is supply if you create puppets. Because then the puppet will have to supply your armies while you pay for the puppet to do so. But in practice it just means that your units will be out of supply for a while before things sort themselves out. So never release puppets unless you will retain sufficient ports to supply your armies from London and of course a land route to those ports.

So once you're in Germany, it's safe to release France, Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg, because you can supply your troops via German ports.

Once you're in Poland and the Baltic States, you can release Germany because now you can use Polish and Baltic ports.

It's a lot more tricky with the Balkans because there are numerous countries but the same principle applies.