Why Space marines are not overpowered, and how you can easily counter them

[Kaosium]

The issue is that just by lurking this board, you don't get an insight into how the game is played multiplayer. You assume that you're able to counter these strategies and tactics. And maybe you can and are a genius HOI4 player. Although that's not very likely. The best players are usually the ones with the most practice against equally good opponents. That's how the meta is made. Someone tries a strategy, if it works people emulate it.

If you watched the Masters of the Mediterranean match you see one side, the devs with a huge advantage in industry, tech, manpower, resources, etc. versus some of the weakest nations in the game. The only advantage they had was the terrain since they just had to hold ground. But they also knew about the meta because they're play multiplayer actively. Most of the things they did that won them the game are not allowed or limited in competitive multiplayer games. Like the Space Marines Turkey built. Or the Sub 3 + Snorkel Greece built. Or the 2 width division spam Spain built.

We're playing different games, as is not uncommon amongst multiplayers themselves, and the skills and strategies differ so much it's kinda ridiculous to pretend they're that comparable. The game changes drastically just by having a team playing with you and from what I've seen the ones who are best at clicking quickly and not getting distracted easily but still able to multitask have a significant advantage over those who cannot do so as well. From what I've seen from 40+ years of multiplaying and the Youtube videos I've watched I'd be willing to bet a set of good team players with better connections and good clicking skills could humiliate a set of better strategists and tacticians who were more independent and slower on the click. That does not mean the former has nothing to learn from the latter.

I didn't see the one you mention, but I did watch one where some of the more popular Youtubers beat some of the devs. Taureror, Mordred Viking and the one who sounds like Robin Leach as I recall. I also learned from another set of videos that there's something known as 'Girls und Panzers' which sounded kinda interesting for someone like myself who recalls watching 'Star Blazers' (the anime where they drudged up the Yamoto and made it a spaceship because they 'only had xxx days to save the Earth!) fondly.

 

[pro.gamer.69]

If those units are going to be expected to be able to fend off or at least delay 160 width of HTs

Given that the combat was full in this test, than yes, that is to be expected as well (assuming that for each IC of tank the attacker brings, the defender is able to have around 2:3s as many in TDs, which is entirely reasonable for combat widths 80 - 160).

hitting them with oodles and scads of CAS

Add a support AA and you're down to 75% of those oodles and scads, which are still limited by combat width. It definitely would be possible to use CAS to force a breakthrough, but CAS is so expensive that you can only sustainably do that a handful of times.

when they have reinforcements and the HTs do not.

Again, this is pretty meaningless. You can have 300 width of infantry lose to just 80 width of attackers if the disparity in strength (not the stat) is big enough.

 

[Zhein]

Why not bomb their factories so they can’t produce the tank destroyers to replace losses and grind them down through attrition? Or bomb their silos and refineries so the tank destroyers have no fuel. That would be a valid strategy, if not for strategic bombers being banned in MP as well...

??
You're going to stratbomb Omsk with 1940 strat bombers ?

...


Did you know, your opponent can do exactly the same ?

And on the grand scale of things, he is still winning, because he has spare ICs that you don't, because you are building tanks, and he's building space marines, so he can build more fighters/strat/something else than you because his troops are cheaper, and if you attack, your loss ratio is 15 to 1.


Seriously, are you even reading what other people are saying ?

War is never a 1 to 1 trade. I don’t know why people think it should be. Just because your tanks cost the same “industrial capacity investment” as their tank destroyers doesn’t mean you should win attacks against them.

You're obnoxious, you haven't provided a single valid argument or test, or proof about it being "easy to deal with". Not a single one.

Answer me this please : Have you played multiplayer ?
If not, why do you think you can explain balance to people that do ?

If anything combat width should be re-examine, since IRL offensives need a 3:1 numerical advantage (if not more) to succeed. For the most part at least. That’s not represented well in HoI4.

Please stop trying to compare combat IRL with combat in HoI4.

 

[Secret Master]

If anything combat width should be re-examine, since IRL offensives need a 3:1 numerical advantage (if not more) to succeed. For the most part at least. That’s not represented well in HoI4.

Of course it is.

You want more width? Use multi-axis attacks to increase that width. You want a better ratio of firepower than the defender? Get your air power in place. Use planning bonus to negate entrenchment. Make the tip of the spear tougher by using divisions that are more expensive/more armored/harder per width. Strangle the enemy's supply if possible. Bypass bad terrain. Use airborne or amphibious attacks to draw off enemy reserves or to seize key objectives while your main offensive moves over land.

3:1 does not have to be literally the number of troops in combat. Getting that advantage as the attacker often requires thinking about the war in strategic terms.

Then again...

Why not bomb their factories so they can’t produce the tank destroyers to replace losses and grind them down through attrition? Or bomb their silos and refineries so the tank destroyers have no fuel. That would be a valid strategy, if not for strategic bombers being banned in MP as well...

We don't ban STRs. Both sides have to consider the impact of strategic bombing in their planning. It's not just the Axis, either. I've seen Germany obliterate fortifications on the Stalin Line using strategic bombers before. And I've seen both sides trash infrastructure and ports to compromise supply.

I know a lot of groups ban STRs because of the airfield issue, but we don't have enough players on enough minors to create enough specialization to create enough planes to make airfield overcrowding due to 2 days of bombing severe enough to be a problem.

 

[pro.gamer.69]

I know a lot of groups ban STRs because of the airfield issue, but we don't have enough players on enough minors to create enough specialization to create enough planes to make airfield overcrowding due to 2 days of bombing severe enough to be a problem.

For us, it's not usually overcrowding, it's just that it's such a self-reinforcing(?) cycle that it becomes very unfun to play against. For example, with TACs it's currently very common for Japan to target airfields in Signapore the second they declare, as well as to launch the "prepared strike" spy mission or whatever it's called against the Raj and/or Philippines. And even with TACs, there are such few airfields in the region that destroying a relatively small number of airbases all but guarantees your bombers will fly unintercepted since you'll outnumber enemy fighters with yours so much. Some people use heavies as Japan to exaggerate this effect, even though they suck at air combat. Doing so then allows you to bomb ports and CAS enemies without issue, all but guaranteeing a victory. The same thing can happen in Africa/the Med, and to the airfields in France during Dday.

However, TACs aren't insanely strong, and if the AC doesn't notice or if the fighters take a few days to go up it's not the end of the world. They also really struggle to bomb AA faster than the AA shoots them down, though eventually they'll be able to if they are set to target it. Still, they are counterable, and make it so that while bombing is a thing you have to have really won the air war (or at least have range and numbers) to do it, especially if you want to do it sustainably.

Meanwhile, with strats that is not the case. They have 4x as much bomb attack as TACs for just 50% higher cost and aren't even remotely limited by airbase coverage. You can put them over Japan from Attu as the US (or any other island) and unless/even if Japan has 2k fighters on standby, you can destroy their airfields, and then their ports (guaranteeing a win) in a ridiculously short amount of time. They can also out-bomb AA with ease.

 

[pro.gamer.69]

TL;DR If your opponent builds a lot of heavy TD's, build CAS instead of tanks. If they build a few HTD's with a lot of artillery, tanks are still effective.

Copypasting this from the other space marine thread. TLDR, I got around to trying them in a game and the commonly-suggested "counters" to space marines (arty and SPGs) all failed - partially due to their losses and partially because they died to my real tanks in a heartbeat.

I played a vanilla 1v1 with a friend (relatively casual player but knows how to make templates, micro enough that he's won them before, build industry, etc.) as the USSR, and decided to go with the space marine strat. Since there was no USA/SAF and my friend took the treaty relatively late I didn't get HTD 3 until late 1940, however I had a huge stockpile of HT 2 and both conversion techs so I was able to have around 72 space marines (with just ~30 factories on them) in addition to 12 12/7/2 heavies and some 240 20w normal infantry.

They were insanely OP. He made 14/4s to try and push them but I was able to just bring in my heavies, and since it was in HMM it wasn't like he could force attack to win with them (like Japan sometimes can). He also made some light tanks with LSPG but they lost so much equipment that he ran out of it before he even reached the Stalin LIne. His actual tanks couldn't push through even 2 of them with 2-3 normal infantry while attacking over the river line (albeit without amtracs), and while they did have SPG in them and air support to carry them through the Vitebsk gap, they could only do so on the plains tile and I could easily counterattack. Even with perfect micro, when he clicked my tanks first, I was able to coutnerattack with the space marines and deorg him enough to actually have my tanks defend.

By the time he called it in late 1942 (we played to stalemate, since without a Dday there isn't a ton I can do either) my infantry, which were grouped into a separate theater, had killed 4000 tanks by themselves and only lost 800 HTDs. Naturally a 2 or 3:1 ratio is to be expected for a defensive war - but 5:1, without their losses from my actual tanks, was insane and would be insurmountable for the Axis in a real game.

Next time we play I'm going to have him do the same on Russia and see if I can break it with amrtac SPGs, but I'm doubtful.