Why mass assault is just bad.

[el nora]

No, it wont there are two traits in the game that make river crossing have almost zero penalty. You just need to grind out adaptable, makeshift bridge ability, and then ranger which is pretty much standard German play. Not to mention by doing the invade Norway focus Germany gets a tech boast to amphibious mechanized so quite a bit of German players these days will use those instead of regular mechanized. Combine all of this with the minimum of 4 Veteran heavy tanks that Germany will have garenteed from the Spanish civil war your toast. He may actually get a BONUS to his attack over the river.

The river line is a complete noob trap and shouldn't be relyed on at all you need to fight the Germans for every square inch. It garentees that you will destroy the infrastructure of the zones and will buy you time for the allies to land. Which is why mass Assault is actually decent as the Soviets as you will be able to fit more crap in the zones that the Germans have to buzz saw through.

Adaptable doesnt affect the river penalty at all. Engineer is only 5% (edit: 7.5% if also on fm) river attack, and makeshift bridges is 20%. Together that accounts for most of the penalty on a minor river. But a major river is still -32.5% attack. Tanks have an inherent -40% river penalty, which a "standard" 15-5 ht-amtrac (don't) with engi3 will take a -12.5% penalty over rivers. Even a more river-friendly 10-10 will only have +5% river attack, so they will still be suffering -27.5% attack over the Stalin Line.

 

[CantGetNoSleep]

No, it wont there are two traits in the game that make river crossing have almost zero penalty. You just need to grind out adaptable, makeshift bridge ability, and then ranger which is pretty much standard German play.

That's only true for the smaller river - between Kiev and the river-free tiles - but that's why your own tanks are there... It's where most battles are fought back and forth.

Most MP games ban tanks in Spain or limit them to the template you start with. Now of course, you can exploit it / use a mod to exploit - to grind infantry you then switch to tanks and keep all the elite - but we ban that too as it's extremely gamey. More generally, La Res mechanics in Spain has made it way too easy to grind generals with limitless traits.

It garentees that you will destroy the infrastructure of the zones and will buy you time for the allies to land.

Errr - did you read my second sentence where I make that exact point?

Which is why mass Assault is actually decent as the Soviets as you will be able to fit more crap in the zones that the Germans have to buzz saw through.

That implies you're arguing MA RHS, which is only for delaying and quite dull really. If you want the "historical" (meaning what paradox has decided is the historical) LHS of deep battle, then you'll actually be worst off than with GBP in supply terms as your infantry, being bigger, will consume a lot more supply.

Finally: delaying just doesn't work for long. A competent Germany will do the repair focus and repair everything pretty quickly so the only way to keep the infra destroyed is to counter attack, which MA RHS is useless at and you'll just be burning a ton of equipment and manpower.

 

[SMGJohn]

I find it interesting that no one bothered even trying things out the different mass assault strategies.
The 10 width strategy works even against AA guns simply because having 1000+ divisions is so game breaking there is no way you can effectively counter this without spamming enough infantry yourself, this works in multiplayer simply because you have other nations that can help you with tanks or more planes if needed.
Lets say Italy spams about 2000 x 10 width, Germany and super Bulgaria builds all the CAS 3, even if Soviet had AA2 support in their divisions at best they can field 200 of them just because its so costly, its also going to harm their tank production, a good Soviet multiplayer player can field about 30 heavy tank 3 divisions that are 40 width in 1941, this is all vanilla by the way, he is not going to have 30 tanks if he produces AA guns for his troops, usually a Soviet player has engineers and pure 20 width infantry, at best mostly just 20 width infantry.

Your 1000 or 2000 x 10 width are going to pin these divisions, your CAS is going to do its job because the beauty of 10 width is not the quality but quantity in their quality they keep pinning and creating so many battles that CAS can do a lot of org damage to the enemy you just start overrunning.

And the reverse is also true, if a Soviet player spams 1500+ x 10 width he can easily hold against the entire Axis if his micro is good enough, a full Axis with full air is going to have a hard time pushing this, yeah they can push sure but if your micro is good you can pin and cycle them in and out, game is going to be over from boredom before you can effectively break this.

I am not saying its a fun play style, its true roach from the old days like 4 years ago when 10 width used to be popular, its only recently that 10 width are allowed in "HMM" servers which is the next big vanilla mod at least from what I read in the ruleset they do not disallow 10 width spam.

The next thing with mass assault that no one seems to care about is the fact if you play countries like UK or Japan you can go mass assault right side which is the mass mob one and get Guerrilla Warfare which gives you out of supply bonus, slap on a general with commando or even general with a field marshal both speccing commando skill, you can invade anywhere without a port and sit there with your fat divisions with no supply issues, meaning they stay at ~80% org.
As Mass Assault Japan popular strategy is to make 17/4 meaning 17 infantry brigades and 4 artillery brigades and using a field marshal and general with commando, this lets you naval invade anywhere without any form of penalty to your org, your divisions fight full strength and are so overpowered in defence they are real pain to destroy.

Japan usually has no game impact in multiplayer games, this mass assault strategy works for Japan because it means they can just invade anywhere without impunity and just sit there all day as America has no means of destroying such divisions without armour, and you never bring armour to Asia its waste of time.

These would never be used for several years in the multiplayer scene if they did not work, the superior firepower always gets deorged so fast, Paradox balancing makes little sense as artillery should be very powerful but very expensive but considering there is no form of ammunition or expenses for firing these guns all day long you can just stack as many as you want in the field, artillery can destroy tanks in real life with impunity, most tank casualties were in fact from artillery in WW2 yet its not modelled in HoI4 most likely duo to simplifications.

But that also does not explain how you can put 1000 x 10 width in the field and just put some CAS up and win, fighters also give you combat bonuses and so does scout planes, its all about stacking modifiers, if you have complete air superiority with 100 scout planes, not even tanks will stop you.

ExpertAI would be a far more appropriate AI to play against than vanilla considering I heard that HoI4 multiplayer scene is so rotten, I really feel sorry for new players.
At least in ExpertAI the AI make good divisions and even knows how to stack tanks and attack with them all at the same time.

 

[CantGetNoSleep]

a good Soviet multiplayer player can field about 30 heavy tank 3 divisions that are 40 width in 1941

I'm puzzled by that stat - seems way too high. Getting 8 heavies is usually regarded as decent, anything above 10 is impressive. I've never, literally never, seen 30 heavies. At least not in vanilla.

(1) Bonus for Heavy 3s is not available until lessons of war is done (Tank Treaty bonus has been used for Heavy 2s). On most historical servers that means you can only get it in 1939, so even with hard research beforehand, you're not going to start pumping them out until early-mid 1940. So you have a year to build your Heavy 3 units.
(2) 30 40 width division means, at the very least, 300 tanks per division. 30 divisions means 9000 heavy tanks
(c) A MIL, in 1941 with decent techs, stability, efficiency, etc, will give you about 6 production a day. Heavy tanks cost 30.
(d) Let's say you had 100 mils on heavies, then you'd be producing 20 heavies a day at max 1941 efficiency (100*6/30).
(e) So to pump out 9000 Heavy 3s in 1 year, you'd need to have 450 days with 100 factories at max efficiency.
(f) And of course, that assumes you start off a maximum efficiency, which you won't. So 30 heavy 3s will take you 2 years at least with 100 mils. There's zero ways to get heavy 3s tech before late 1939 - even if you can kick Tanu Tuva out and declare on them in 1938, etc.
(g) To get to the numbers you're talking about, you need to have something closer to 250-300 mils on heavy 3s by 1940, taking into account efficiency ramp up etc. That's only possible if your economy was massively boosted early game.
(h) Most servers won't allow that.

Am I missing something? Always keen to learn.

general with a field marshal both speccing commando skill

That argument was made to me earlier. As I asked then, how exactly do you manage to grind two generals with those traits? Particularly as the UK which can't get involved in Spain. And in any case, what's the use of it in MP games? Certainly not d-day as Germany & Italy will have at least 2, probably closer to 4 20w infantry parked on every tile of coast line so invading with no tanks is useless.

ExpertAI would be a far more appropriate AI to play against than vanilla considering I heard that HoI4 multiplayer scene is so rotten, I really feel sorry for new players.
At least in ExpertAI the AI make good divisions and even knows how to stack tanks and attack with them all at the same time.

Expert AI is quite good but also quite buggy - kill its volunteers in Spain/China and it never recovers.

MP scene can be ugly - the use of discriminatory slang (racial, sexist, etc) is rampant and really not okay. You just have to find a good server with people you get on with. You'd think there'd be a good business case to be made for PDX to host things on their servers for a modest monthly fee, instead of P2P, and then have toxic players banned forever. Would massively increase the amount of MP games, and make it a lot more fun. And be quite profitable.

 

[billcorr]

I am not saying its a fun play style, its true roach from the old days like 4 years ago when 10 width used to be popular, its only recently that 10 width are allowed in "HMM" servers which is the next big vanilla mod at least from what I read in the ruleset they do not disallow 10 width spam.

Do 10 width units generate XP?

Here is the define:


DIVISION_SIZE_FOR_XP = 8, -- how many battalions should a division have to count as a full divisions when calculating XP stuff


My interpretation from this Vanilla define is this,

8 battalions
16 width


If a division is at least one-third (8 bns) the maximum size (25 bns -- Vanilla), then that division will provide:
-- Army XP
-- XP for a general.

If a division is less than one-third (7 bns) of the maximum allowable size (25 bns -- Vanilla), then that division will provide
-- No Army XP
-- No XP for generals


Thoughts?

 

[CraniumMuppet]

Do 10 width units generate XP?

Here is the define:


DIVISION_SIZE_FOR_XP = 8, -- how many battalions should a division have to count as a full divisions when calculating XP stuff


My interpretation from this Vanilla define is this,

8 battalions
16 width


If a division is at least one-third (8 bns) the maximum size (25 bns -- Vanilla), then that division will provide:
-- Army XP
-- XP for a general.

If a division is less than one-third (7 bns) of the maximum allowable size (25 bns -- Vanilla), then that division will provide
-- No Army XP
-- No XP for generals


Thoughts?

DIVISION_SIZE_FOR_XP = 8, -- how many battalions should a division have to count as a full divisions when calculating XP stuff

Keyword being "full". It's probably the base (aka 1.0*all other modifiers applied)

If you have less it might be reduced to 0.2,0.6 or however your division looks like. I don't know if that's how it works on the top of my head, but I know from running through the SCW in LaR a billion times with 6w crap troops that you very much gain xp.

Again, it's late so I won't check it, and I don't know if that's actually how it works but I'll bet my sandwich that it is how it scales

And if I'm wrong I only lost one sandwich. I got a whole loaf so I'll just make another

 

[el nora]

Am I missing something? Always keen to learn.

Your math is good. Your meta slightly less so. You need to make use of your intelligence agency.

(1) Bonus for Heavy 3s is not available until lessons of war is done (Tank Treaty bonus has been used for Heavy 2s). On most historical servers that means you can only get it in 1939, so even with hard research beforehand, you're not going to start pumping them out until early-mid 1940. So you have a year to build your Heavy 3 units.

Steal Heavy 2 from SAF in summer 38. Use Tank Treaty Bonus on Heavy 3. You get them done in winter 39/40. That gives you more like 18 months to pump out heavies.

(2) 30 40 width division means, at the very least, 300 tanks per division. 30 divisions means 9000 heavy tanks

Heavies are 40 tanks/bn, so a minimum of 400 tanks/div, or 12k stockpiled. But who's counting?

(c) A MIL, in 1941 with decent techs, stability, efficiency, etc, will give you about 6 production a day. Heavy tanks cost 30.

In 1941, you should have both tools and industry 5 complete from stealing industrial blueprints. You should have them complete in 1940. Output should be closer to 8 production/day at max production with tools 5, dispersed 5, free trade, and 91 stability (I do two promises of peace). Or 9 production/day with concentrated, but getting to max production efficiency takes longer with concentrated than with dispersed. Swings and roundabouts.

(d) Let's say you had 100 mils on heavies, then you'd be producing 20 heavies a day at max 1941 efficiency (100*6/30).

Lets say you have 150 mils on heavies. Because why are you selling yourself short? You should be producing right about 40 tanks per day at max production efficiency.

(e) So to pump out 9000 Heavy 3s in 1 year, you'd need to have 450 days with 100 factories at max efficiency.

To pump out 12k tanks, you need 150 mils producing at max efficiency for 300 days. Not impossible at all in the 18 months you have available.

(f) And of course, that assumes you start off a maximum efficiency, which you won't. So 30 heavy 3s will take you 2 years at least with 100 mils. There's zero ways to get heavy 3s tech before late 1939 - even if you can kick Tanu Tuva out and declare on them in 1938, etc.

So instead of 300 days, it takes 423 days if you put 150 factories all on ht3 with dispersed 5 and no retention. Or 425 days if concentrated. I had to double check the math. The intersection of the functions didnt change visibly when I switched the dispersed flag from 1 to 0. It turns out that if 12k tanks is your target, they will produce that amount in roughly the same time period and concentrated is net profit thereafter.

(g) To get to the numbers you're talking about, you need to have something closer to 250-300 mils on heavy 3s by 1940, taking into account efficiency ramp up etc. That's only possible if your economy was massively boosted early game.

150 mils is doable. You need far less on infantry equipment than you think you do. Not for SMGJohn's numbers, with 1500x 10 widths (which is going to get you kicked for lagging everyone else). But for normal vanilla games, 24 tanks by summer 41 is considered the minimum expected number.

(h) Most servers won't allow that.

Boosting is justified if you are actually using the resources.

 

[bitmode]

And if I'm wrong I only lost one sandwich. I got a whole loaf so I'll just make another

The wiki is your friend: https://hoi4.paradoxwikis.com/Commander#Experience

Each division counts as 10%. Small divisions (< 8 battalions and support companies) count proportionately for less, e.g. a division containing only 3 battalions would count only as 3.75%.

 

[TorAndreKongelf]

This whole discussion is quite faulty to begin with as almost all the division listed here arent historical at all.

You should never argue anything is good or bad based on combat width. The historical is 21 and thats what you go with no matter what.

 

[billcorr]

The wiki is your friend: https://hoi4.paradoxwikis.com/Commander#Experience

Many thanks.

Good point.

Bit o' confusion though.

That word.

"Experience"

Did the HoI4 game designers mean

"experience" ?

or

"experience"

From the wiki, it sounds like they meant

"experience"


(might be a localization thing...lost in translation when translating into English)

Edit: confusing? I should say. There is experience (as in Army Experience, Navy Experience, and Air Corps Experience) and then there is experience (XP for leveling up Generals so they get to throw more spells).

 

[CantGetNoSleep]

Your math is good. Your meta slightly less so. You need to make use of your intelligence agency.

First and foremost, thanks for an extremely helpful reply. Lots of interesting points - particularly the concentrated industry timing - need to delve into that as I'd gone back to dispersed.

The steal from SA is the one that we always argue about because they always want to build an intelligence agency to stop Germany doing the same and so the steal takes forever/not worth it. Perhaps I need to speak to SA player... Though I tend to play UK, I might want to have a crack at Soviets again.

Rest of your points are also extremely helpful. I tend to play elfowlf mod (stops incessant lags) which limits steals to 100% bonus. But yes, I should really be more aggressive about stealing advanced industry techs from Bhutan....

 

[Secret Master]

In 1941, you should have both tools and industry 5 complete from stealing industrial blueprints. You should have them complete in 1940. Output should be closer to 8 production/day at max production with tools 5, dispersed 5, free trade, and 91 stability (I do two promises of peace). Or 9 production/day with concentrated, but getting to max production efficiency takes longer with concentrated than with dispersed. Swings and roundabouts.

And this is why we frown on certain kinds of tech stealing. I had almost forgotten how massive your production can get in the lead up to Barbarossa if you got blueprints for the IC techs.

While your post does not directly mention it, tricks like this really make the agency pay off quickly.

 

[batata1]

I don't know how the devs haven't nerfed tech stealing yet. It's the perfect combo of OP and totally unhistorical.

 

[blahmaster6k]

I don't know how the devs haven't nerfed tech stealing yet. It's the perfect combo of OP and totally unhistorical.

It's not a nerf so much as a bugfix that's needed. Industry stealing the way it's commonly used relies on a bug where the game tries to give you concentrated 2+ since the target country has it and you don't, but it doesn't realize you have a mutually exclusive tech (dispersed industry 2+). Even if you have dispersed 4, the game still sees that Bhutan has concentrated 2, tries to give it to you, but sees that you don't have concentrated 1 yet. This results in the game trying to "catch you up" since you don't have the prerequisite tech (concentrated 1) to the tech it's trying to give you (concentrated 2+), resulting in that 300% bonus and ahead of time reduction.

The game recognizes mutually exclusive techs and won't give you a tech that you picked the "other" option for, but dispersed and concentrated industry aren't coded as mutually exclusive after the first tech. If it were properly coded the game would see that Bhutan does not have any industrial tech that you don't, and the game would only give a 10% research speed bonus.

 

[Bolshevik-]

Yeah the reinforce rate is good but isn't that important since you only really need it for your tanks and you can get that using signal. The extra infantry is good for cheap defense but thats about it. The infantry combat width reduction is only good for defense but thats about it. This doctrine isn't worthless, but it does appear to be the worst of the 4 by quite a bit. From what I'v seen, most players in multiplayer either pick superior firepower or mobile warfare. If you want extra manpower the mobile warfare doctrine seems better for the 5% than the mass assault 5% manpower.