What are the best or the most common division templates? (2020)

[Zeprion]

Probably one of the most asked questions in the entire game.

As far as I can tell, the most common divisions are:
- 20 width 7/2 divisions
- 20 width 6/2/1 divisions with a light tank
- 40 width 14/4 divisions
- 40 width 13/4/2 divisions with anti-tank
- 40 width 13/4/1 divisions with 1 heavy tank destroyer aka "Space Marines" (banned in multiplayer)
- Best support are recon, artilery and trenches.
As for tank divisions:
- 20 width 6/4 division with medium tanks and motorized
- 40 width 15/5 division with medium and motorized.

What other common or good division templates you know in 2020?

I'm aware that good players, the type of players that play majors in multiplayer, have no standard division template but rather their templates are dynamic depending on the playstyle of enemy nations.

In that case, what are some division templates that you use and against what type of enemy/nation? What is your tactic with those templates?

And, the infantry has 4 military doctrines, which doctrines work best with what division template?

 

[ecpgieicg]

I've seen 10 width 5 LT divisions for the cheap and early hardness.

As for the 'common' divisions, I would rather use more artillery whenever resources permit. Especially with 40 width, 11/6 makes more sense than 14/4; 11/6/1 better than 13/4/1 etc.

Also why heavy TD instead of heavy SPG + AT gun? Why 2 TD?

 

[Bki]

I believe the current "standard" meta is 10-0 infantry, and to use 40-width tanks when you need to attack.

 

[ecpgieicg]

I believe the current "standard" meta is 10-0 infantry, and to use 40-width tanks when you need to attack.

Ugly. But hard to argue against. (Oh the hardness.)

That's one of the reasons I don't play vanilla HOI4 anymore. It doesn't work.

 

[Kryndude]

Here's what I can tell from mostly reading meta threads and testing some of the things myself. I don't play MP tho.

Core: 10-0 infantry ENG, 40 width tanks ENG/SIG, SF or MW
Optional: ART, AA, LOG
Can work: 7-2, 14-4, RECON on tanks, MAIN

the rest aren't viable except some very situational ones.

I've heard 13-4-1 is also pretty good but it doesn't work in SP with EAI 4.0

 

[Fulmen]

Land combat hasn't particularly changed in 4 years, so what's best in 2020 is the same as in 2016.

Best support are recon

Last I checked, REC was sadly still garbage post-LaR.

 

[Bki]

Last I checked, REC was sadly still garbage post-LaR.

The increase in speed might be worth it for some divisions.

 

[Fulmen]

The increase in speed might be worth it for some divisions.

Depends on your setup, but most of the time you'll have something better to fill your support slots with, at least against decent human opponents.

In SP you don't really need things like SIG, or necessarily even AA or AT, and you'll also be able to get away with light and fast exploitation divisions without them getting shredded to pieces, and so on such divisions another +10% to speed might be pretty good.

 

[ecpgieicg]

I've heard 13-4-1 is also pretty good but it doesn't work in SP with EAI 4.0

What do you mean? I have used less than full 40 width divisions along the lines of 13-4-1 (intention was to get 11-6) and have no issues whatsoever with EAI.

 

[Premu]

What about motorized divisions? I use those to follow my tanks to prevent the spearhed to be cut off.

I personally use 9 Mot/1 light TD. These are fast and are at least pretty decent in single player. Later I might replace mots with mechanized infantry.

 

[HugsAndSnuggles]

What about motorized divisions? I use those to follow my tanks to prevent the spearhed to be cut off.

Same as regular infantry, really: 10 mot (optionally with eng + rec) - their only job is to hold out for a bit (and even that is often unnecessary), so everything else is excessive.

 

[Reals26]

I’ve been using 10 medium 10 motorized in my tank divisions lately, with a lot of success.

 

[Kryndude]

What do you mean? I have used less than full 40 width divisions along the lines of 13-4-1 (intention was to get 11-6) and have no issues whatsoever with EAI.

13-4-1 is a 40 width division, and with EAI the AI uses a lot of support AT so one or two HT on 40 width gets easily piereced.

 

[Zeprion]

I've seen 10 width 5 LT divisions for the cheap and early hardness.

As for the 'common' divisions, I would rather use more artillery whenever resources permit. Especially with 40 width, 11/6 makes more sense than 14/4; 11/6/1 better than 13/4/1 etc.

Also why heavy TD instead of heavy SPG + AT gun? Why 2 TD?

I've heard that TD and heavy TD are the best for those division templates.

 

[Simon_9732495]

Also why heavy TD instead of heavy SPG + AT gun? Why 2 TD?

Self propelled Artillery, Self propelled Anti-Air and Tank destroyer have the advantage to be a lot cheaper than the normal tank

Example:

	Production Cost	Tanks per batallion	Overall IC cost
Medium Tank 3	14	50	700
Medium SPArty3	14	36	504
Medium SPAA3	14	12	168
Medium TD3	14	24	336

Disadvatages of SPArty, SPAA and TD:

They have no Org, no breakthrough and SPArty and SPAA have reduced Armor.

In an infantry divisions org is not a problem. But you desperately want the Armor. Therefore you choose the Tank Destroyer for a cheaper Version with the same Armor as the Tank.
And of course the piercing. SPArty has Piercing near 0 and a TD has A LOT.


TL;DR:
TD is cheaper has more armor and A LOT more piercing than SPArty.

 

[Fulmen]

A single support battalion of 1936 AT is enough to pierce a "space marine" (lol) template with 1 battalion of 1934 or 1941 HTD, unless it's a 1941 HTD with a level 5 or so upgrade to armour, but by that point the other guy should have 1940 AT or in the worst case, added a battalion of line AT.

It's an overrated garbage template that got banned in all welcome games back in 2016 because a lot of inexperienced players weren't smart enough to build AT to counter it. Any servers that still ban them in 2020 have some very old and outdated rulesets.

I guess in SP you can still get away with using them if the AI doesn't have AT, though I've read vanilla AI is supposed to field AT now. And then there's the Expert AI mod that a lot of people use. Honestly you're probably better off just building more proper tank divisions instead of sticking armour in infantry. But then again I don't play SP, so maybe I'm wrong and I'm overestimating the AI here.

EDIT: Correction: Assuming all battalions are at full strength with the latest equipment and not taking piercing from possible AA into account, you do need a battalion or two of 1936 line AT to counter a single battalion of 1941 HTDs. If the latter has level 5 armour, then you'll need to at least tech up to 1939 AT and a third battalion of line AT, or alternatively add about 7 1936 line AT battalions (no 1939 AT upgrade). The no-brainer choice is to just tech up in AT and keep the amount of line AT battalions at 2 at the most. A cheap and effective counter.

Now I do know the AI's not smart enough to counter 1941 HTDs, so indeed I might be looking at this whole thing from too much of a "multiplayer angle".

 

[Simon_9732495]

It's an overrated garbage template...

That's a bit too harsh.
The point of putting one Tank into a Inf template is to get the Armor Bonus.
(What is the Armor Bonus? If you have some Armor and the enemy can't pierce it, you get an +40% attack bonus (1d6 die roll instead of 1d4)

A Inf division with one Tank is a lot cheaper than a tank division and has a big edge against infantry divisions without piercing. And you fight a lot against Inf without piercing.

 

[Fulmen]

That's a bit too harsh.
The point of putting one Tank into a Inf template is to get the Armor Bonus.
(What is the Armor Bonus? If you have some Armor and the enemy can't pierce it, you get an +40% attack bonus (1d6 die roll instead of 1d4)

A Inf division with one Tank is a lot cheaper than a tank division and has a big edge against infantry divisions without piercing. And you fight a lot against Inf without piercing.

See the edit I made.

 

[MR2]

Here's what I can tell from mostly reading meta threads and testing some of the things myself. I don't play MP tho.

Core: 10-0 infantry ENG, 40 width tanks ENG/SIG, SF or MW
Optional: ART, AA, LOG
Can work: 7-2, 14-4, RECON on tanks, MAIN

the rest aren't viable except some very situational ones.

I've heard 13-4-1 is also pretty good but it doesn't work in SP with EAI 4.0

Way too cryptic for me...

 

[ecpgieicg]

with EAI the AI uses a lot of support AT so one or two HT on 40 width gets easily piereced.

Yes, but you can't plan to rely on armor bonus or else have no way to make progress.