Understanding Combat: The Spanish Civil War

[Strager]

Hi guys,

Been a long while since I played HoI4, and today I have access to the game with it's new expansion thanks to a friend who purchased it. I wanted to give it a re-evaluation to see if I should consider purchasing the expansion myself, but I can't for the life of me figure out how to actually win in combat.

I started as Nationalist Spain (or rather chose the nationalist side a month or so after starting). Since there isn't enough time to make a single new unit before the war starts, I'm stuck with the starting forces.

I broke them into 2 armies of 24 units each (since it appears this is the maximum size before the turn red) and created a "front line" in various different places along the border with Republican Spain.

No matter what I do however, they win EVERY battle. Even a 9 to 1 advantage ends in my 9 units retreating eventually (after fighting for days on end) and meanwhile, the Republican Spainards somehow manage to walk around and take every territory in spain that I don't have a unit sitting in leaving my guys totally surrounded.

I thought maybe it had to do with unit makeup or the commander, but the starting commander seems good enough and the units I'm fielding are the same as the other guy...

What am I missing? It's the same deal with air units and sea units they win every battle there too.....

 

[Strager]

Here's an example:

Why am I losing this battle?

 

[Sernista]

You see how your divisions have effective attack scores of 4 and 3, and Breakthrough scores of 1? The enemy mountaineers have 42 and 88. Your men are so penalized from poor supply and the terrain they're combat ineffective, while the enemy are special forces in their element. What's more, the enemy appear to have air superiority, making things even more difficult for your troops.

 

[Darkeng]

Well... you atack mountain division in the mountains while you suffer from a lack of resources and enemy air support/superiority

 

[ZanderD]

Well the fact that you are out of supply for one. Then is the terrain penalty and the fact that the enemy has air superiority (hefty penalties all-round). How much equipment are your units missing? Also the rep unit you are attaching is a special forces unit that does not suffer from the mountain terrain penalty.

 

[Strager]

Ok.... but shouldn't the AI be prioritizing the right troops for the right terrain? I thought all I had to do was assign a bunch of units to a commander and issue an "offensive line" and the AI should be controlling which units go where etc.

I've been watching those numbers and somehow the other side is ending up with like 200's+ - how do I get my numbers higher? Both of us only seem to have a single mountaineer unit but when mine goes head to head with his the same thing happens - his numbers are huge and mine stay tiny.

EDIT: How am I out of supply? I'm fighting on my own land.

 

[DragonScythe]

Ok.... but shouldn't the AI be prioritizing the right troops for the right terrain? I thought all I had to do was assign a bunch of units to a commander and issue an "offensive line" and the AI should be controlling which units go where etc.

I've been watching those numbers and somehow the other side is ending up with like 200's+ - how do I get my numbers higher? Both of us only seem to have a single mountaineer unit but when mine goes head to head with his the same thing happens - his numbers are huge and mine stay tiny.

EDIT: How am I out of supply? I'm fighting on my own land.

1) No the AI generally isn't smart enough to take the type of unit and terrain into account. You need to take direct command over special forces and mechanized armies in order to use them effectively. The ai is pretty much only good enough to hold a line with infantry.

2) Even if you are attacking with a mountaineer unit in the mountains, you are still at a huge disadvantage because it's easier to defend a mountain than it is to attack it. You still need to attack from multiple directions with superior numbers to dislodge an entrenched mountaineer unit in the mountains.

3) If you are surrounded, you lose your supply link. Supplies come from the capital, if you have no direct path to it, your troops will starve and suffer attrition and combat maluses.

4) Air superiority makes a huge difference for defenders, because it reduces the breakthrough of attackers, which means you lose organization much faster and can therefore not sustain the attack as long.

 

[Culise]

Supply is also dependent on local infrastructure compared to the number of soldiers in the region. If you don't have enough road/rail lines to actually move food, guns, and bullets to your soldiers, they'll take supply penalties proportional to how badly your supply lines are overloaded. You can see your supply status by using the appropriate map option from the set in the bottom-right corner of the screen (top button in the small vertical row, looks like a fuel canister).

EDIT:
Oh, also, your soldiers are green as grass, looking at those experience ratings (the clover icon and the experience bar to its immediate right). They're taking additional penalties to their combat performance based purely on the fact that they don't know what they're doing, on top of the terrain, supply, and loss of air superiority.

 

[Strager]

OK... I'm still not getting this in game terms. I understand what attrition and supply ARE - so let me put this another way.....

I'm playing the Spanish Civil war.... what steps do I need to take either during or before the war to ensure that my troops will win anything. How do I control supply and attrition? There is no time to build additional infrastructure, or to even make troops. My last attempt I managed to push out a small 28% efficient great war tank brigade but it didn't do much for me.

In terms of experience I had them exercising since day 1 , but most of the troops that I get I'm not given until the day the war starts. I assume the opposition's forces are just as green so that shouldn't be an issue

Also, offense or defense doesn't matter. Their smaller units steamroll me even when I have air superiority and am defending.

 

[stl3l9n]

Since your pre war forces get split at the start of the war, there is no point fussing over them. You can build factories in the land which will go to you though.
When the war starts, you get some terrible infantry that is untrained, along with some of your well trained original army that you had before. Use them to spearhead through the enemy bad divisions. I don't understand what you mean when you say that their smaller units crush you. Can you show a photo of that when you aren't encircled, out of supply, have enemy aircraft bombing you and attacking enemy special forces exactly where they are meant to be?

 

[Strager]

Ok here's what I'm doing from the start of the war:

1.) Creating several divisions and setting front lines on all the borders of Republican Spain:

They almost immediatly cut off a small number of my troops leaving them encircled:

My troops keep getting pushed back after losing battle after battle and quickly allt hat remains are troops in a few spots:



and then I auto-surrender. This has often happened within a month of the start of the war.

 

[Strager]

Third screen;

 

[stl3l9n]

I have no clue how you instantly got from that first picture to the second one. While you seem to be messing up a bit in the first one, there doesn't seem to be toooo much wrong. Look at this, and maybe have a practise with some other easier countries like Japan beating China or Italy beating Ethopia.

 

[Corner79]

Well it5s the Spanish civil war so you are not going to have much prewar build up.

1. You don't have to attack to win. Let the enmey make mistakes. Defend good terrain, mountains, across rivers, let the AI make mistakes and create opportunities. This will help your div experience. This a longer battle in 1.5 than in the past

2. Allow the Italians and German to help if they volunteer, follow their gains in the early months of the war.

3. Put your mountaneers in mtns to defend

4. You need your equipment up for infantry guns, support equipment and any artillery. You can look for lend-lease or.just focus on that while your defending in your own factories

Edit: not much you can do about aircraft unless you get volunteers