Support brigades in Single Player

[BloodAsp]

Hi,

I decided to play several games in La Resistance, and boy Italy changed

My question is about support brigades for lower rank Major, or stronger minor (as Ger/SU/US/UK can afford anything really, and tru minors can't afford them anyway), basically which ones do you use?
Here is how I see them:
ENG - good for infantry, reduces penalties for river crossing, adds defense, put it into every division
ART - I have been using it since 2005 (HOI 2) on EVERY division not using SPART. EVERY DIVISION
AA - looks good on paper (some soft and hard attack), but maybe it will be better just to contest air superiority with fighters?
4XRecon - we have 3 recons now.... In previous version it gave you great bonuses (WOW YOU CAN COUNTER TACTICS!?), which were NOT working (bug? WAD but just weak?). ACs are pointless, CAV looks cheap enough for minors, mot for infantry, light tank for tanks. I tried to use them, looks cool, but still not doing anything.
AT - looks good on paper, so I add it to every division when fighting majors (GER, SU). To be fair I rarely check if my inf can pierce.
RART - used to love them, now I am just not sure.... If you did plenty of conquests pre war and have industry - go for it. Used to be cheap like rocks and even better than art. I added it to INF divisions sometimes.
LOG - never used them. Marines in Canada? Maybe for large armor divisions?
MAINTENANCE - never used them
HOSPITALS - never used them, but now manpower is used by garrisons, so maybe?
MP - never used them, now they are priority research for garrisons.
SIGNAL - for tanks. For normal divisions Radio tech is enough, right?

What brigades you are using? Was "META" changed in 1.9?

 

[Paul.Ketcham]

Maintenance is amazing for smaller powers, due to its ability to replace losses of equipment in the field (meaning your unit strength won't drop as fast from damage) as well as just providing a constant influx of basic ground equipment. You're not likely going to make many tank divisions just from captured equipment, but rifles in particular will be in spectacular abundance.

Hospitals might be too expensive for minors, but their experience retention is amazing since it makes it far more likely you keep troops above regular experience (attacking infantry constantly seem to drop to green), and more likely that you can get and retain veteran or elite divisions. Don't get it for the manpower savings, troop experience is the primary reason to get these.

AA is usually a good idea if you can't assure air superiority due to its damage mitigation from air attack; even if you can't kill the CAS themselves, you can at least reduce their effect on your troops.

 

[dasaard200]

OK, here's my thrupence tossed in :
ENG - Who doesn't grab them ??
ARTY - A bigger bang for your Buck !!, SFirepower RULES .
AA - Looks better amongst the CAS and TAC wreckage, and then we get FLAKPANZERS !!! (SPAA)
LOG - A "Don't leave home without it" item, THE better bread, bullets, butter, and BEER company .
MAINTENANCE - Required for Armor, Motor/Mech; keep these puppies RUNNING !, good capture stats, too .

I call these "must haves" for All my XXs; the following are optional :

RECON - L.tanks for this; a favored 'can have' .

ROCKET ARTY -[ !! ] SFirepower, and you DON'T USE IT ??!? {silly person}
1] arty aims at targets,
2] R.arty aims at areas,
3] BOTH KILL . I'd swap this for RECON, if only having 5 support companies ...
MPs - are for suppression; useful, optional .
SIGNALS - possible for reinforcements/reliefs ... maybe .
HOSPITALS - maybe .
AT - ??, AT 2s for maybe Japs; another 3 research slots until AT 3s .

IF using the "!10 support Companies" mod' #6 is R.ARTY, #7 is RECON .

 

[SchwarzKatze]

How is logistics necessary for single player?

 

[dasaard200]

When you go into a LOW supply area, or are depending on a small (L1-3) port; LOGISTICS reduces the supply usage of a division [XX], allowing more XXs to work a state's VPs and incoming supplies from friendly ports . Also you can use smaller XXs to spread the available supply .
Low infrastructure areas WILL suck an offensive DRY, if you can't build up ports and infrastructure !

 

[SchwarzKatze]

When you go into a LOW supply area, or are depending on a small (L1-3) port; LOGISTICS reduces the supply usage of a division [XX], allowing more XXs to work a state's VPs and incoming supplies from friendly ports . Also you can use smaller XXs to spread the available supply .
Low infrastructure areas WILL suck an offensive DRY, if you can't build up ports and infrastructure !

Asides from stupid allies flooding the line (which adding logistics to your divisions won't help), I rarely hit the supply cap unless I'm fighting in Africa or Inner Asia. Remember we're talking about single player.

 

[Secret Master]

Asides from stupid allies flooding the line (which adding logistics to your divisions won't help), I rarely hit the supply cap unless I'm fighting in Africa or Inner Asia. Remember we're talking about single player.

Really? Even in SP, I hit the supply cap in Europe/Ukraine at various points in the game. It's not a common occurrence, but it does happen to me.

LOG also cuts fuel use, which isn't that big of a deal in SP for majors in terms of overall fuel use, but it's nice at the local level to keep panzers fueled up for offensives.

 

[squid_hills]

I'm still playing 1.8, but I'll toss in my $0.02 here anyway...

My support company auto-includes are:

Support Arty
Engineers

No matter which country I play, those 2 always get used. They get added first, and they get added to everything; armor, paratroopers, infantry, cavalry, etc. Not garrison, obviously. That would be silly.

My support company includes-once-I-have-enough-MIC are:

Logistics (because naval invasions and also the AI does not prioritize infrastructure)
Rocket arty (because doubling up on support arty on the Superior Firepower tree makes Infantry dangerous... with 2 support arty companies my 10/0 have as much SA as a 7/2 with no support... and they don't lose manpower as quickly, either)

My situational supports are:

Hospitals (if I'm playing a major with manpower issues like Italy or Japan they let my manpower pool act like its a bit deeper than it really is... also good for minors with manpower problems... the xp retention is great, but if you're big enough to rely on tanks for all your assaults, you won't be bleeding manpower fast enough to need these to hang on to xp)
Maintenance (for armored units only, mostly, and only if I'm not swimming in MIC... As Germany I very quickly reach a point where I'm building tanks faster than I can train divisions, so the reliability boost isn't worth it, but on Italy I can never have enough tanks, so it's worth it to make sure the only ones I lose are due to enemy action, not user error... as an aside, Maintenance can be useful for Infantry in low-MIC minors like China, as you will steal enough enemy rifles to keep your guys armed and operational, saving you precious MIC for support arty or something else)
Military Police (garrisons only, obviously... these are auto-include for garrisons, but since they only go on garrison units, I classify them as 'situational')
Support AT (when playing against someone who uses tanks a lot only... when facing Germany these become a must-have, when facing Japan they are a waste of MIC)
Support AA (when playing as someone who struggles to get an air force off the ground... France and the USSR benefit from this a lot, and don't forget that AA also provides some piercing)

My never take supports are:

Recon (on paper these look great, but every time someone here posts an experiment testing them out, their alleged bonuses never seem to actually materialize... if their effect isn't visible during testing, it probably isn't worth using)

Radios (I know they say to put these in your armored divisions, but I've never had my tanks struggle to the point that I feel I need to)

 

[ctl3]

I used to add hospital to my infantry divisions when playing as minor until I think about it. Hospital is expensive. IIRC total IC cost of hospital companies in an infantry army ( 24 divisions ) is as expensive as a 20 width armored division. Having one or two extra armored division is huge to minor countries and usually save more life than hospital does.

AA on the other hand is surprisingly good AT weapon in single player game. The most significant advantage of AA is cost: 36 AT needs 2 steel and 2 tungsten while 36 AA only needs 2 steel. Although the piecing value of AA is lower than AT, AI armor divisions are so weak that AA is enough to penetrate them.

 

[dasaard200]

AA ?, love it !!
But WHY stop there ?; For INF XXs, my AA section is always 2 line BNs of AA and (+AA) ; for Armor/Motor/Mech XXs, it's 2 line BNs SPAA [2s or 3s] and (+AA) .
My Arty is either 4 line BNs of Arty or SPGs [2s or 3s] .
So far,we're looking at 12W in arty, and 2-4W for AA ... leaving 24-26W to fill up the XX .
But wait !, there's more ...
if you can afford 4 Rocket techs (3 for +5%) and 4 extra Arty techs (+3 for +15%); gives an overall +60% damage; in a fully pumped up Katyusha !!!
DO you really WANT to spend another 2W for 2 line BNs of R.arty (+R.arty) ? Yeah, it's rather extreme; but the downwind damage is downright irresistable .

 

[blahmaster6k]

For basic defensive Infantry divisions, Engineers only is the most efficient support company build. If you have no or limited air power, also include anti-air support. Just do 10-0 defensive infantry for the cheapest defensive division. For 40 width 14-4 infantry-artillery or 13-4-1 infantry-artillery-TD offensive infantry as a minor, you probably want:
1) Engineers (terrain penalty reduction, entrenchment).
2) Support Arty (soft attack).
3) Maintenance (reduces equipment losses in two ways, you lose less to attrition and you capture equipment from your enemies. Maintenance saves so much IC when teched up).
4) Signals (lets your divisions reinforce faster than the enemy).
5) Logistics (Use these for every tank division, and offensive infantry if planning to fight in low infrastructure regions).
6) Support Rocket Arty (when available, more soft attack for offensive infantry, replace logistics).

AA support is fantastic if you don't have a sufficient air force, but unnecessary if you can have air superiority as your fighters will interrupt most enemy CAS. If you are doing a no-air build, it is a must, and you should also include 2 self propelled anti-air with +5 gun upgrade to reach 100 air attack in all your armored divisions. Having 100 air attack in your division completely eliminates the enemy air superiority penalty to defense and speed.

 

[Reman]

Here's how I rank support companies (for optimized single player runs):

S tier:

• Logistics: Has a game-changing impact past the early-mid point of a campaign. Supply is the final bottleneck in HoI4, and getting a -40% reduction makes late-game wars a breeze. Also good in the midgame for the oil savings and for supplying divisions engaging in encirclements.
• Military Police: Huge manpower+equipment savings in garrisons, which will be the biggest source of losses if you're playing correctly.

A tier:

• Engineer: Good on infantry for the entrenchment bonus, good on tanks for the terrain bonuses.
• Armored Recon: Can get the armor bonus against nearly all AI templates in the early game, and is always useful on tank divisions for the speed bonuses.
• Maintenance: Can go cost-positive by stealing stuff from the AI through "captured equipment". Also helps to keep tank speed up by reducing equipment loss.
• Artillery: A very IC-efficient way to boost soft attack.

B tier:

• Motorized Recon: Good for the speed bonus on tank templates.
• Anti-Air: AA still has the bug that lets it shred CAS at silly ratios, although controlling the air yourself can make this basically meaningless. Also surpassed by SPAA if you need to reduce red air penalties.

C tier:

• Light Armored Recon: The speed bonus on tanks can be good, but interwar ACs have a 9km speed limit, and it's annoying to have to research better variants to fix that.
• Rocket Artillery: Can be another good source of soft attack, but supply will soon be a bigger concern by the time this is deployed in sufficient numbers to make a difference.
• Signals: Reinforce rate is noncritical in the vast majority of SP scenarios, and there are several micro tricks to negate it completely. Shaving a few days off the time to max planning is also not particularly great when the Staff Plan (or whatever it's called) ability exists, and planning decays at 3x the normal rate for manual control.

D tier:

• Field hospital: A noob trap. You'll save much more manpower by building better tanks and planes than by using these, and manpower can be permanently fixed through puppet annexations.
• Anti-tank: The main reason to have these is to counter "space marine" templates, which the AI will never use. The AI is so bad at using tanks that these are basically never worthwhile.
• Cavalry Recon Detachment: These slow down tanks at 6.4 km/hr, and the actual bonus for recon is negligible based on testing people have done.

 

[him_15]

Is there any use for signal support brigade at all?

 

[Reman]

Is there any use for signal support brigade at all?

Mostly the reinforce rate. In MP games, reinforcement can become decisive if it lets you stay on important river/fort lines. It's also good in general if battles are grindy, since the extra combat efficiency from a few extra hours of properly reinforced units starts to add up. Also, you can't pause the game in MP to use the same tricks to trivialize offensive reinforcement like you can in SP.

All of these issues go away in SP, however. The only time I've seen signals be useful in SP is in scenarios like the Neither Death Nor Dishonor achievement for Romania, which can be invalidated if the Soviets push in even just one tile into Bucovina.

 

[Krautkopf]

I used to add hospital to my infantry divisions when playing as minor until I think about it. Hospital is expensive. IIRC total IC cost of hospital companies in an infantry army ( 24 divisions ) is as expensive as a 20 width armored division. Having one or two extra armored division is huge to minor countries and usually save more life than hospital does.

He has a point here.