It is HOI 4 that sucks as it cannot decide who you as the player is. It is not reasonable that you should be making all of these decisions to be able to be reasonable effective. a country leader depends on others to help out with this.
I've got nearly 3k hours. I'm still a noob. I only have 46 achievements and I got most of them by following guides exactly instead of learning for myself 😭 Most of my time is spent in RT56, OWB, and EaW
@red_seven_ It depends if you want to hold the line or deal damage more. Usually damage is more helpful but for a country that needs a port garrison and doesn't care if they do damage the engineers are better. Especially if you lack tungsten
Also here are the timestamps: 1:10 Infantry 5:33 INF 15w 6:56 INF Offense 9:27 Mountain Boys 10:10 Marines A 10:58 Marines B 11:32 Marines C 12:30 Shock Troops 14:40 Panzer A 16:55 Panzer B 17:47 Garrison A 18:15 Garrison B 19:45 Medium Tank Design (I also recommend skipping to these timestamps after watching the whole video first)
I wanted to give a brief explanation for the size of the marines if people are wondering, specifically A and B. Naval Invasions are primary limited by how many divisions you can use, which is usually 10 or 20. What that means is that you want to put as much power into those divisions as is reasonable, so that is why they are bigger than most infantry divisions. Also a question I have is about 40 width, I remember them being meta when the first division guide was made, are they still functional against the AI given how much it struggles, but I am guessing they are too expensive compared to the 35 widths when talking about Mechanized warfare.
40/W are ok in multiplayer for defending on cities, otherwise 30 or 35 widths are better( be aware for 35’s you may sacrifice a bit of armour for AA or AT)
40 width being too expensive is arguable. If you make a really expensive heavy tank you can disperse them in 30 width and have 5/6 divisions, but if you have some average/slighly expensive mediums you could shove them into a 44 width division and go for quick encirclements, even if you could only afford 3 of those divisions. So its just what you are looking for really, do you want to slowly push a 4/5 tiles frontline and get encircle a bigger group of division, or quickly breakthrough 1 or 2 tiles and encircle only a couple tiles, but a lot faster than the heavies could? Since the combat width penalty is only 1% per excess width, if we talk about a few tank divisions where they can all fit, then that reduction doesnt matter too much, especially if you got air superiority.
Iirc, the terrain and supply update which i think was on nsb made the 40 width division not that desirable anymore, too much stacking and terrain penalty, horrendous supply use, and stuff like that made it not really worth it anymore.
@@moriokki2972 i used 44 width heavy tank because it sounded insane and admittedly needing something like 4/5 supply per unit is pretty insane, but nothing other than a mountain or a swamp could stop them. I did need some transport planes in some areas to allow them to function,but with fuel drums it was a lot more maneageble.
Ever since NSB made every terrain type a different width 40 widths have not been meta. I believe they've changed the widths of various terrains a few times since then and will likely change them again in the future. Currently 40 widths will take overstacking penalties on all terrain types if 2 of them are attacking the same tile, which is not ideal but they aren't the worst thing ever.
0:50 "It's like saying a hammer is better than a screwdriver without knowing the job you need to do" Counterpoint: I can hammer a screw in. I can't screw in a nail.
Actually you can't hammer a screw in with a hammer without damaging the wall, ergo destroying the point of using a screw in the first place.( A screw is stronger than a nail in certain situations.) Also ofc you can hammer a nail in with a screwdriver. You use the butt.
4:10 Field hospitals also buff the HP of your infantry, which decreases strength lost when losing organization, which reduces equipment (including manpower) lost.
Maintenance company isn't really good, you just get a little bit of infantry equipment and artillery at cost of less actually good stats like hp, soft attack and air attack.
Thank you for being super clear as to what the meta is and how to achieve it. Most hoi4 channels just assume everyone interested kept up with all the dlc and all the meta through the years.
@Awsomeguy1236 you forgot the sacrificial fast battle ship or heavy cruiser (depending on tech) to cover the carriers from hits Just heavy turret AA and Max engine power to keep up
@@Lukey-Dmy navy is: Subs with lots of torpedoes plus max engine Destroyers with depth charges Heavy cruisers with armour and heavy attack Some AA spammed destroyers for annoying air(mostly not) And sometimes, battleships, which I put on light attack on it. Is this trash or good?
3 numbers to keep in mind for ground units: org, armor, pen. 30 org is needed for defending, including when you take ground and get pushback. 48 armor beats all ai unit's pen at '40, and 80 armor beats them at '42 and onward. 37 pen beats '40 armored units, and 80 pen does the same in '42. No matter what you're doing, those three numbers will determine your engagements, defensively and offensively.
Adding extra fuel on tanks is also good because the fuel capacity bonus is scalable with the amount of tanks in a division. More fuel = more durable spearhead, and also taking into account fuel consumption reduction from logistic support.
Tank design: "speed suspensions and less engine" is cheaper than using "reliable suspensions and more engine" for the same stats (if you aim at 6,4-10 kmh). Reliable suspensions are like diesel engine, optimal for slow high armor mediums (target is 4kmh).
I've always prefered high armour mediums with high piercing. And having them in my inf divisions. Maybe i should do less of that and more fast and cheap mediums in tank divisions.
@@willholliday3537 a bit i dont play, i can say a single High armor tank really boost stats for infantry. Piercing Is nice, Just nice. hardness and breaktrough wont do much, as it's one tank and many foot soldiers aniway, It Just average down to a point thats not that relevant. Price Is a Better thing to look for. Try many lighter things, i did too, it's fun, Just dont expect It to be meta.
Field hospitals are op with motorization boosts. Im a minor player and one of my favorites is estonia unaligned, so every body counts, with focus boost i can retain 30% of casualities suffered by time soviets come at me, making effectively my 80k men into 110k plus retaining expirence allows me to defend better. If i go fascist and follow same principle, i have manpower pool of about sweden with all baltics unified.
this, so much this hospitals makes your manpower effectively larger, sure early on it's not by a lot, by maxed out it's silly, and 90+% of the time the ai don't use hospitals, meaning it's basically a free advantage men are expensive, bullets are cheap
Your division templates helped me out tremendously, had a much better campaign as Edward VIII than I ever had, but I made a little oops that I'll rectify on my next attempt
Light tanks as facist czechoslovakia is actually quite good. U have a big industri and 20% bonus for Light tanks i think. Together with improved Light tank researched from the start. If u build the light tanks with close support Guns and medium howitsers spg u can get pretty good soft attack. And u can have lots of tank redy early on
@@sgtburden8482 kinda~ but also by war start, improved Art and AA is still very new so not that much in the field (the ai still needs to research and put it in production after all), and you can optimise your design towards more armour (even if it raises the ic cost by a lot) then it's a matter of positioning to maximise cw and bring as much un its into the fight
What I'd love to see is how to build up to those units. Yes, as Germany, it's easy, but as a minor? I never know if I should go for thanks or mobile, if so, how many divisions I'd need and so on. Love the content!
Here is the timestamps for EVERY of his showcasing : Templates : 1:10 Default German Infantry Template 2:32 Infantry+ 5:27 Infantry 15 Combat Width 6:56 Infantry Offense 9:27 Mountain Boys 10:08 Marines A 10:58 Marines B 11:32 Marines C 12:30 Shock Troops 14:38 Panzer A 16:55 Panzer B 17:45 Garrisons A 18:15 Garrisons B Tank Building Design : 19:35 Basic Medium Tank Chassis
I've been having decent success with light tanks. I find the key is to build them more like support vehicles for your motorized infantry. Make them cheap and fast with a decent gun. Think of them as infantry fighting vehicles like the Bradley and I think they become very good. This leads to motorized divisions with less artillery and more t a n k
This is a very good tutorial, since I suck at division template editing, so this helped me quite a lot. P.S: English is not my main language, so expect writing and grammar mistakes in this comment.
@@somedude2073 Thanks, I'm pretty insecure about my writing, and I don't want to deal with people being angry at me for some reason, so I include a P.S as a reminder of my writing and grammar abilities.
I never had problems with my divisions templates. I just make up the one i consider the most role-play. The real grind is in logistics and microgestion.
Ranger support also gives +20% soft attack to your line arty, if you get the doctrine for it. Its the one reason i've been using it with 3 or 4 arty on the line.
When first designing your tank after researching a new one, pick a speed to aim for, and for all future modification to that model of tank, ensure they reach or exceed that target speed. Tank divisions only move as fast as their slowest division so slowly upgrading the speed of a model of tank over time won't really improve your division speed, as you have to produce enough new tanks to replace all of your old model tanks before the speed increases which might not happen before you have a whole new model. Also pay attention to the speed of trucks and mechanized, as you do not need to be faster than them, since they will slow you down to their speed if your tanks are too fast.
I have been tearing my hair out trying to get Poland to win without ceding Gedansk to Germany, this video is helping me understand part of why I am losing.
So helpful, learnt so much and got many achievements thanks to your guides! I'd like to see you do an achievement run as France Big Entente. I keep collapsing 😆
Very similar to what I use. For anyone wondering about Space Marines. Replace 1 infantry with medium self propelled AA. Or if want to go even cheaper and fighting very weak opponent (China) armored recon with a light tank stacked on armor also works. Imho. Also Flame tanks are still cool as support if can afford them.
"Garrison B" (all the horses) doesn't have to cost much XP. If you pick the officer corps trait "Proper Heritage" it costs zero to add a cavalry battalion. Then after the division is designed, just switch back to a better officer corps trait.
Id tend to swap the AA on a tank out for maintenance. Not only because you lose less tanks but also because you can steal supplies from all the encircled units. Hospitals are suprisingly good. Yes they can be relatively expensive but the increase to veterancy caused by the offset when used on things like tanks can give a +75% modifier to all your stats very quickly. Its worth considering and is basically always worth it for a country like Germany.
As I player who has two days in game, this is incredibly helpful. The fact you have Division for defense and offensive made me really just how much of a massive noob I am 😂. Please more videos like this.
Amazing video! Can you do an updated 2024 Miklos Horthy and the Habsburg Prince achievement guide? I’m having a lot of trouble and all the guides I find are out of date. If you could I would greatly appreciate it!
I understand everything in this game besides the specific things like making templates, building planes and tanks. Which pretty important. I usually just add a few artillery to my divs and that's about it
Question/want your opinion: Do you think maintenance companies are worthwhile if you are trying to hold a line while you have a small economy? For that Eq. Capture modifier. I think you did talk about nearly every other support company bar Signal and Maintenance Companies.
I have a few questions about the offensive infantry template : Is rocket artillery / motorised rocket artillery worth it? Are flame tanks useful to get better terrain bonuses? Are Radio / Maintenance support companies too niche? Thanks for the guide bittersteel
rocket arty is usually not worth it since you usually can make regular arty at the very start of the game, flame tanks are very useful on shock troops like tanks and motorized, radio and maintenance is up to you. hope that helped
I'd say that hospitals are great for offensive infantry, because infantry divisions drain your manpower when attacking. So adding hospitals will save you manpower in the long run and you won't drop xp lvls.
I learned off another video with tank divisions you can make your medium tanks relatively cheap with close support guns but also have one battalion of tank destroyers and build stugs of doom with heavy guns
I’ve been absolutely fuming recently because I have 1500 hours and little understanding of how to build good divisions. Just found this video. Makes more sense noe
Here is a cheap (Actually expensive) division you could make: 1 mechanized 1 super heavy landcruiser (unlock by the land research facility in gotterdamerung) 1 AA support (Optional) 1 Artillery support (Optional) and put anything by that could help if you have spare resources and manpower and such. (This works EXTREMELY well if paired with other divisions, as long the enemy doesnt have 30 divisions on one single province it could be ok)
I don't think you should put engineers on attacking infantry & mountaineers (pioneer still great for marine) cause they only increase attacks on forts & rivers and AI never builds forts as far as I know, while the speed doesn't really matter since infantry has low speed so you won't increase much. Field hospitals may fit more for atk inf in order to reap some juicy veterans, I remember the experience gained is based on the damage the division deals, field hos can add to that nicely. It also increase inf HP and I like the war support bonus against casualties these attacking inf may take because of lack of armor
Im quite new to being kinda good sort of at hoi (500h but we dont talk about that) and im playing a germany game rn and following and i just have to say. Wow that invasion of poland was fast.
I've owned this game for years and never really played it. I play a lot of Stellaris and CK2/3 but this one seems so steep. This helps a lot. I'm trying to dive into it on my day off wednesday lol
My preferred division Templar is a three by three block of infantry with engineers either cavalry or armored recon (depending on the nation) artillery anti-tank artillery and rocket artillery in support combined with the superior firepower doctrine I have found that this template is nigh unstoppable against AI however I have yet to test it out in multiplayer
Personally I highly recommend slipping SP Artillery into the tank divisions if possible. They provide insane soft attack. Even when I'm just using light tank chassis and medium howitzer I can get 6-800 depending on if I have 2 or 4 battalions in the division. I believe it's possible to even get 1000-1200 (with 4 battalions) if you do MBTs or maybe even mediums with the super heavy howitzers but I haven't tested it yet
My go to infantry division at is a 30 width consisting of 12 infantry battalions and 2 artillery battalions, with arty, mp, engineer, maintenance and Armored car recon support companies
Strip the maintenance, the MP, and change the armoured car to trucks and I'm with you, tho AA is almost always worth it - the rest seems entirely surplus to requirements imo
@@guyincognito3199 I feel you, but let me explain my reason for the Maintenance and MP's. Maintenance allow you to not only loose less of your own equipment (especially artillery), but also to capture enemy equipment, which is very helpful if your economy isnt the strongest, and even if it is will mean you have more mills to put on stuff like tanks MP: these are a must for infantry imo, since wether they are moving into enemy territory or have just gotten pushed themselves, they will be able to go back to fighting much quicker, since the MP's help them recover their Org faster. And on a sidenote, armored cars have the highest recon value and are pretty cheap to make, on top of giving your divisions a little bit of armor which makes them harder to break for regular infantry
@@jokingjoker4964 interesting, I'm gonna have to look into the MP thing. I only ever really use maintenance in OWB, but I do think I've used them as some small countries in the distant past. Still think you'd be better off with arty, rockets, flame tanks, trucks/rangers, and AA for attacking and with only engineers and arty for defending, but I respect the thinking here for sure!
From what I've seen, as long as you have Soft-Attack, every division is viable and good. I've seen 5 inf work for Soviets because of how Mass Assault Doctrine works. One Template I want to play around with more is either 8 mech and 4 SP Artillery, or 9 mech and 4 SP artillery as a budget tank division.
I was waiting for division template tutorial from u for a long time, i always got totally destroyed by stupid italian ai which cant even defend its own coastline
If you do the proper lineage doctrine it lets you build horse divisions at no xp cost. Its 35 for the initial purchase but you can from then on design any cav division for no extra xp. Similar thing for special forces as about midway down the tree you get picks that reduce special forces design cost down to 2xp per so i lile to wait until im there before designing divisions. I believe theres other reductions for artillery and tanks so can really save yourself a boatload of xp especially considering if you have to do multiple lines in the designer since the initial cost is 25.
@@Bitt3rSteel This is true, i just find myself in such desperate need of xp early game especially with nations who will be at war early and some really benefit from it like china.
@@Bitt3rSteel Counter counterpoint: You're spending the 35xp to get the better spirit regardless. Since it doesn't cost anymore XP to switch from one spirit to another, it actually only costs 35xp to get the free horsey spirit, make all your horse templates, and then switch out to the one you want. It costs a total of 70xp in the end yes, but since 35 was going to be spent anyway on the combat spirit, it doesn't really count as "extra", thus you do actually save a lot of XP if you're trying to go for a full MP division.
About the Divison Combinations and builds: It is "pretty simple" when you know what to take into account. Do not feel bad to pause and think it through - especially in Singleplayer. A) Front Width: Every Front (the line from one Segment on the Map to the other) has a width that determines "how many People can stand beneath each other and fight the same Time". This is more important when deciding how many Units fight aka to defend/attack with but also you should consider this creating the Division - but your Divisions can be bigger than the Frontline and thus be inefficient. It i s better to have them "split up" then. B) Consider the Supply demand - it is nice to Have Tanks in your IInfantry, but that also makes them "bad" for Hills and Mountains as well as Citys and Woods while the same Time drain your Fuel Reserves fast. Also, the Speed Bonus of a Light Tanks Brigade can not work without also have the entire Infantry beeing mobile infantry as well - so even more Fuel costs. For Countries with few acess to Recources or Countries with especially big Manpower this is of significant impact as you want them have very "low cost" while Coutries with low Pop or that need to conserve Manpower it may be more sensible to create more expensive Troops. Every demand of Supply needs to reach the Frontlines, and a Low Supply Army can fight on a wide Front with insane Masses and that Way easy outfight the smaller Army. To put out an example: Japan in China lives by this as all Supply must go through the shitty Portsd of Korea and than through the north even worse Indfrastructure - so Air Supply is mandatory to even have some Supplys. But,m having Horses instead of Engines for your Artillery makes the Army slow, but that does not matter as the Infantry is not much faster as well. But that Way - and by choosing "lower Supply" in your Officers you can have an Army trice up to four times bigger than your Opponents and thus always fill up every Frontline to the Max while packing a serious Firepower. C) Always have "Designated Units" - Have Units have Anti-Tank and some Artillery. Have "Defenders" and "Offense Troops". Have some Tanks as "Spearheads" for the terrain and occasional needs. this way you can decide what "Effect" you want on which Front. D) Do not underestimate the effects of Air Support - have some Fighters that secure Air superiority and some Bombers that decimate enemy Units Morale, giving you an advantage when needed. This also goes for Coastal Bombardements by Naval Units when attacking or even defending. This all strongly affects how your Troops work - and thus primarily choose the Researches and compositions that fit into that what you need and do is mandatory - you need another Composiotion for your "African Korps" as for the "Chinese Liberation Army" or the "Ethopian Peace Force".
You can use the Proper Heritage for 35 AP to make your free cavalry units. I also make a defensive 10 CW civil guard an 20 CW cavalry division and the full garrison unit + MP, some smaller nations I also make heavy cavalry units of 30 CW with 1a2 motorized, there very strong and fast. This ofc is all for single player
Came here and immediately got the answer I needed (that there is no single meta division design). Thank you for that. I think I just need to find a way to play the vanilla version. It was a far better game imo back when it was simply build 20 width division, smash into enemy, win. I know that type of gameplay is not for everyone - I play games to relax after work, not for a mind breaking calculus problem.
I find 18-battallion infantry divisions to actually be really good as a budget division. They have incredible defending abilities making them useful for holding against a stronger enemy, and even have some good soft attack if you stack the right buffs. The thing is in my opinion, you make budget divisions by using budget composition, not budget size. The only reason you want to use low width divisions is if you can't even cover your entire frontline, in which case I would even use bare 5-infantry divisions to cover the line and still have my main force be 36-wide. Assuming you can cover the entire line, less 36-wode divisions is just better than more 18-width divisions in every way. To turn them into attacking divisions, just switch two infantry divisions into tank battallions for breakthrough. I presonally don't use artillery besides the support battalion.
“You suck at HOI4”
Even after 1000 hours, that’s a fair assessment.
You should stop sucking at 1936 hours
It is HOI 4 that sucks as it cannot decide who you as the player is. It is not reasonable that you should be making all of these decisions to be able to be reasonable effective. a country leader depends on others to help out with this.
I've got nearly 3k hours. I'm still a noob. I only have 46 achievements and I got most of them by following guides exactly instead of learning for myself 😭
Most of my time is spent in RT56, OWB, and EaW
me too man, me too
Me too, I couldn't even kick Italy out of Ethiopia
I didn’t think Bitter’s content could get any better. First a Japan guide, then a guide for the HRE, now template guide? My man is COOKING.
bro was cooking dinner for his family but forgot to stop cooking when he started playing hoi4
SPEAKING FACTS
"You suck at HOI4."
Why you gotta call me out like that?
Having the content creator imposter syndrome I see
Oh Pravus
Hi Pravus
Honestly I never knew you played hoi4 I thought you just played rebel and plague inc lol
soft attack is very important for ALL Frontline divisions, because the attacker takes more damage attacking into a higher soft attack division.
But if thw attacker has allot of hardness allot of the soft damage doesent go through tho
@nagayafamm1006 but they probably won't, since it's single player
and that's why the first support company for every division should be artillery and not engineers.
how much soft attack do we need@@JackNicholason
@red_seven_ It depends if you want to hold the line or deal damage more. Usually damage is more helpful but for a country that needs a port garrison and doesn't care if they do damage the engineers are better. Especially if you lack tungsten
Also here are the timestamps:
1:10 Infantry
5:33 INF 15w
6:56 INF Offense
9:27 Mountain Boys
10:10 Marines A
10:58 Marines B
11:32 Marines C
12:30 Shock Troops
14:40 Panzer A
16:55 Panzer B
17:47 Garrison A
18:15 Garrison B
19:45 Medium Tank Design
(I also recommend skipping to these timestamps after watching the whole video first)
commenting so i dont lose it
Thank you!
Noice
Thanks a lot, I respect and admire your desire to benift the rest of us 👏👏👏🫡
👍
your divisions finally got me to survive against the soviets as unaligned finland thank you.
I WON THE WINTER WAR
@@captainobvious238 Good job!
@@captainobvious238 now do "finnish him"
Do it. Let the dark side flow through you@@earthfederationspaceforce9844
i wanna see bittersteel play multiplayerr
Against tommy kay or dankus
Not with them
he's too skinny to join the obesity club
He played with dankus once on dankus channel
He would dunk on them, save the game and make a disaster save video
Sane
The strats are so different nowadays. I remember the times when if your divisions weren't 10/20/40 width you were considered a lunatic.
why this changed?
@@NeM3Si881DLC changed how it worked
Your problem is caring about what other people think.
I wanted to give a brief explanation for the size of the marines if people are wondering, specifically A and B. Naval Invasions are primary limited by how many divisions you can use, which is usually 10 or 20. What that means is that you want to put as much power into those divisions as is reasonable, so that is why they are bigger than most infantry divisions. Also a question I have is about 40 width, I remember them being meta when the first division guide was made, are they still functional against the AI given how much it struggles, but I am guessing they are too expensive compared to the 35 widths when talking about Mechanized warfare.
40/W are ok in multiplayer for defending on cities, otherwise 30 or 35 widths are better( be aware for 35’s you may sacrifice a bit of armour for AA or AT)
40 width being too expensive is arguable. If you make a really expensive heavy tank you can disperse them in 30 width and have 5/6 divisions, but if you have some average/slighly expensive mediums you could shove them into a 44 width division and go for quick encirclements, even if you could only afford 3 of those divisions. So its just what you are looking for really, do you want to slowly push a 4/5 tiles frontline and get encircle a bigger group of division, or quickly breakthrough 1 or 2 tiles and encircle only a couple tiles, but a lot faster than the heavies could? Since the combat width penalty is only 1% per excess width, if we talk about a few tank divisions where they can all fit, then that reduction doesnt matter too much, especially if you got air superiority.
Iirc, the terrain and supply update which i think was on nsb made the 40 width division not that desirable anymore, too much stacking and terrain penalty, horrendous supply use, and stuff like that made it not really worth it anymore.
@@moriokki2972 i used 44 width heavy tank because it sounded insane and admittedly needing something like 4/5 supply per unit is pretty insane, but nothing other than a mountain or a swamp could stop them. I did need some transport planes in some areas to allow them to function,but with fuel drums it was a lot more maneageble.
Ever since NSB made every terrain type a different width 40 widths have not been meta. I believe they've changed the widths of various terrains a few times since then and will likely change them again in the future. Currently 40 widths will take overstacking penalties on all terrain types if 2 of them are attacking the same tile, which is not ideal but they aren't the worst thing ever.
0:50 "It's like saying a hammer is better than a screwdriver without knowing the job you need to do"
Counterpoint: I can hammer a screw in. I can't screw in a nail.
how do u take the screw out with the hammer
Not with that attitude you can't
Actually you can't hammer a screw in with a hammer without damaging the wall, ergo destroying the point of using a screw in the first place.( A screw is stronger than a nail in certain situations.) Also ofc you can hammer a nail in with a screwdriver. You use the butt.
You can screw the nail by hammering it sideways..
@@markcostello5120 🤣🤣
4:10 Field hospitals also buff the HP of your infantry, which decreases strength lost when losing organization, which reduces equipment (including manpower) lost.
they also boost my morale knowing not as many men will die
So which divisions would you put them in?
@@jasongarfitt1147 Infantry divisions, especially if you're a country like Poland with some industry but little manpower.
@@Bigzthegreat so engineers, artillery, AA, field hospital?
@@jasongarfitt1147 Yeah, just slap it on an infantry template
TYSM as a new player this will help me in my runs. Love your content!
Haven't played in a while, how perfect that my favorite HOI4 youtuber just happened to publish the exact type of video I need today!
Thanks you mister Steel ! I was looking for something like that for a while and never got any reliable advice until now x)
Any time!
Its very powerful to include maintenance in your ass-kicking divisions, especially the ones you use to eat pockets
should i use anti air as support or part of the actual division
@@HSE331 support
@@HSE331usually support, if you are in post late game, you can switch it out if you need the support div space for something else
Maintenance company isn't really good, you just get a little bit of infantry equipment and artillery at cost of less actually good stats like hp, soft attack and air attack.
Thank you for being super clear as to what the meta is and how to achieve it. Most hoi4 channels just assume everyone interested kept up with all the dlc and all the meta through the years.
The intro alone hits really hard. But it's completely true so I appreciate the blunt approach to your tutorial.
This is exactly what I've been missing, could you do an air and navy template guide? Would really help!
He still doesn’t know navy, no one does, but I think he should do air!
@@Lukey-D Navy is just death stack as many torpedo DDs and armoured Light cruisers as possible with 4 carriers
@Awsomeguy1236 you forgot the sacrificial fast battle ship or heavy cruiser (depending on tech) to cover the carriers from hits
Just heavy turret AA and Max engine power to keep up
@@Lukey-Dmy navy is:
Subs with lots of torpedoes plus max engine
Destroyers with depth charges
Heavy cruisers with armour and heavy attack
Some AA spammed destroyers for annoying air(mostly not)
And sometimes, battleships, which I put on light attack on it.
Is this trash or good?
3 numbers to keep in mind for ground units: org, armor, pen. 30 org is needed for defending, including when you take ground and get pushback. 48 armor beats all ai unit's pen at '40, and 80 armor beats them at '42 and onward. 37 pen beats '40 armored units, and 80 pen does the same in '42.
No matter what you're doing, those three numbers will determine your engagements, defensively and offensively.
Mein Fuher, why are we building anti-air units that can pierce through exactly 14.314159 inches of steel?
"I just know"
i played for 1k hours and still didn't know how to make decent templates, thanks bro
Adding extra fuel on tanks is also good because the fuel capacity bonus is scalable with the amount of tanks in a division. More fuel = more durable spearhead, and also taking into account fuel consumption reduction from logistic support.
Tank design: "speed suspensions and less engine" is cheaper than using "reliable suspensions and more engine" for the same stats (if you aim at 6,4-10 kmh). Reliable suspensions are like diesel engine, optimal for slow high armor mediums (target is 4kmh).
I've always prefered high armour mediums with high piercing. And having them in my inf divisions. Maybe i should do less of that and more fast and cheap mediums in tank divisions.
@@willholliday3537 a bit i dont play, i can say a single High armor tank really boost stats for infantry. Piercing Is nice, Just nice. hardness and breaktrough wont do much, as it's one tank and many foot soldiers aniway, It Just average down to a point thats not that relevant. Price Is a Better thing to look for. Try many lighter things, i did too, it's fun, Just dont expect It to be meta.
Reliability isn't useful to be honest, it is only bad if it is lower than 30%. META tank design has only 67% reliability and it is fine.
Field hospitals are op with motorization boosts. Im a minor player and one of my favorites is estonia unaligned, so every body counts, with focus boost i can retain 30% of casualities suffered by time soviets come at me, making effectively my 80k men into 110k plus retaining expirence allows me to defend better. If i go fascist and follow same principle, i have manpower pool of about sweden with all baltics unified.
Estonia is Scandi can give you millions
this, so much this
hospitals makes your manpower effectively larger, sure early on it's not by a lot, by maxed out it's silly, and 90+% of the time the ai don't use hospitals, meaning it's basically a free advantage
men are expensive, bullets are cheap
Field hospital are so expensive and for me they dont reduse that much men
Your division templates helped me out tremendously, had a much better campaign as Edward VIII than I ever had, but I made a little oops that I'll rectify on my next attempt
Light tanks as facist czechoslovakia is actually quite good. U have a big industri and 20% bonus for Light tanks i think. Together with improved Light tank researched from the start. If u build the light tanks with close support Guns and medium howitsers spg u can get pretty good soft attack. And u can have lots of tank redy early on
don't you usually lose the armor advantage by '40 due to AA and ART getting more piercing?
@@sgtburden8482 kinda~
but also by war start, improved Art and AA is still very new so not that much in the field (the ai still needs to research and put it in production after all), and you can optimise your design towards more armour (even if it raises the ic cost by a lot) then it's a matter of positioning to maximise cw and bring as much un its into the fight
@@quentintin1 ok, thanks
What I'd love to see is how to build up to those units. Yes, as Germany, it's easy, but as a minor? I never know if I should go for thanks or mobile, if so, how many divisions I'd need and so on. Love the content!
I'd say go what your country is better at through their focus tree so if you get more research bonus/boost to mobile go mobile if that makes sense
Here is the timestamps for EVERY of his showcasing :
Templates :
1:10 Default German Infantry Template
2:32 Infantry+
5:27 Infantry 15 Combat Width
6:56 Infantry Offense
9:27 Mountain Boys
10:08 Marines A
10:58 Marines B
11:32 Marines C
12:30 Shock Troops
14:38 Panzer A
16:55 Panzer B
17:45 Garrisons A
18:15 Garrisons B
Tank Building Design :
19:35 Basic Medium Tank Chassis
Man wth this guide is pure gold. Its not posted anywhere???
I've been having decent success with light tanks. I find the key is to build them more like support vehicles for your motorized infantry. Make them cheap and fast with a decent gun. Think of them as infantry fighting vehicles like the Bradley and I think they become very good. This leads to motorized divisions with less artillery and more t a n k
I think it would be great to follow up with a guide on air and naval templates and perhaps on how to use your navy in different situations.
Thank you for making this, I've been swiping the divisions you've made for a while so this is great.
This is exactly what I needed as a returning player. A naval version of this video would be great
This is a very good tutorial, since I suck at division template editing, so this helped me quite a lot.
P.S: English is not my main language, so expect writing and grammar mistakes in this comment.
Your English is really good, there's no mistakes in that sentence. I probably would've written it nearly the same way.
@@somedude2073 Thanks, I'm pretty insecure about my writing, and I don't want to deal with people being angry at me for some reason, so I include a P.S as a reminder of my writing and grammar abilities.
I too find myself sucking at division templates, sometimes I just get my phone and copy the division templates I had saved in there
Thank you for this video, I have ever wished such guides :) Please make more of these, like naval, air and so on :)
I never had problems with my divisions templates. I just make up the one i consider the most role-play. The real grind is in logistics and microgestion.
Ah yes, the masochists of hoi4, must be fun when you do barbarossa
5:20 bitter hitting us w/ the "e-shports alta" has made my day
Ranger support also gives +20% soft attack to your line arty, if you get the doctrine for it. Its the one reason i've been using it with 3 or 4 arty on the line.
When first designing your tank after researching a new one, pick a speed to aim for, and for all future modification to that model of tank, ensure they reach or exceed that target speed. Tank divisions only move as fast as their slowest division so slowly upgrading the speed of a model of tank over time won't really improve your division speed, as you have to produce enough new tanks to replace all of your old model tanks before the speed increases which might not happen before you have a whole new model. Also pay attention to the speed of trucks and mechanized, as you do not need to be faster than them, since they will slow you down to their speed if your tanks are too fast.
I have been tearing my hair out trying to get Poland to win without ceding Gedansk to Germany, this video is helping me understand part of why I am losing.
So helpful, learnt so much and got many achievements thanks to your guides!
I'd like to see you do an achievement run as France Big Entente. I keep collapsing 😆
I have 1800 hours and I've still learned a lot from this video. Thank you so much!!!
Love the Futurama clips!
Very similar to what I use. For anyone wondering about Space Marines. Replace 1 infantry with medium self propelled AA. Or if want to go even cheaper and fighting very weak opponent (China) armored recon with a light tank stacked on armor also works. Imho. Also Flame tanks are still cool as support if can afford them.
This video is going to be super helpful next time I play.
Super interesting, gonna start a new round with all the things i just learned from your video!
You did a good job explaining
"Garrison B" (all the horses) doesn't have to cost much XP. If you pick the officer corps trait "Proper Heritage" it costs zero to add a cavalry battalion. Then after the division is designed, just switch back to a better officer corps trait.
That's still 70 XP tho
You are awesome! I didn’t even know I could add stuff to my tanks, you’ve taught me so much about this game and I can’t thank you enough!
How does it work, I can't do it :(
I believe it's one of the dlcs
@CorneliusTheWizardDog Yeahhh I had the dlc but never knew how to use it lol.
Id tend to swap the AA on a tank out for maintenance. Not only because you lose less tanks but also because you can steal supplies from all the encircled units.
Hospitals are suprisingly good. Yes they can be relatively expensive but the increase to veterancy caused by the offset when used on things like tanks can give a +75% modifier to all your stats very quickly. Its worth considering and is basically always worth it for a country like Germany.
Good to know I've been building my tanks right. I will diversify my infantry templates from now on. Thanks for the guide.
As I player who has two days in game, this is incredibly helpful. The fact you have Division for defense and offensive made me really just how much of a massive noob I am 😂. Please more videos like this.
Only game where I have more hours watching tutorials rather than playing :D
Perfect video!
Next, pls make division templates, which first priority is the terrain.
Amazing video! Can you do an updated 2024 Miklos Horthy and the Habsburg Prince achievement guide? I’m having a lot of trouble and all the guides I find are out of date. If you could I would greatly appreciate it!
I needed this so bad. Thank you so much. keep up the great work
I understand everything in this game besides the specific things like making templates, building planes and tanks. Which pretty important. I usually just add a few artillery to my divs and that's about it
3:02 that's basically my standard unit too I just add an artillery and a anti tank or anti air unit depending on the situation
Thank you so much,been struggling with this stuff!
Happy to help!
Question/want your opinion: Do you think maintenance companies are worthwhile if you are trying to hold a line while you have a small economy? For that Eq. Capture modifier. I think you did talk about nearly every other support company bar Signal and Maintenance Companies.
I needed this video so much, thank you Bitt3r, this is so helpful!
I really needed this, god damn thank you!
I have a few questions about the offensive infantry template :
Is rocket artillery / motorised rocket artillery worth it?
Are flame tanks useful to get better terrain bonuses?
Are Radio / Maintenance support companies too niche?
Thanks for the guide bittersteel
rocket arty is usually not worth it since you usually can make regular arty at the very start of the game, flame tanks are very useful on shock troops like tanks and motorized, radio and maintenance is up to you. hope that helped
@@ImaginaryProud1 doesn't the flame tanks reduce the speed of your tanks divison? thanks for the tips!
not really as you can design the flame tanks yourself and put speed on the flame tank(if you have the no step back dlc)
@@ImaginaryProud1 ohh ok, thanks
I'd say that hospitals are great for offensive infantry, because infantry divisions drain your manpower when attacking. So adding hospitals will save you manpower in the long run and you won't drop xp lvls.
Internet: Show hand. Bitt3rSteel:
gud luck bitt3rsteel
Can you do a guide on how to touch grass pls
NO.
Dude, he said 14:10 - “The majority of Europenis forest - the green….”
How much more green do ya need? :p
I learned off another video with tank divisions you can make your medium tanks relatively cheap with close support guns but also have one battalion of tank destroyers and build stugs of doom with heavy guns
Soo good this guide!
Hey Bittersteel could you do an updated naval guide specifically for how you build up your ships in singleplayer
I’ve been absolutely fuming recently because I have 1500 hours and little understanding of how to build good divisions. Just found this video. Makes more sense noe
Here is a cheap (Actually expensive) division you could make:
1 mechanized
1 super heavy landcruiser (unlock by the land research facility in gotterdamerung)
1 AA support (Optional)
1 Artillery support (Optional)
and put anything by that could help if you have spare resources and manpower and such.
(This works EXTREMELY well if paired with other divisions, as long the enemy doesnt have 30 divisions on one single province it could be ok)
I don't think you should put engineers on attacking infantry & mountaineers (pioneer still great for marine) cause they only increase attacks on forts & rivers and AI never builds forts as far as I know, while the speed doesn't really matter since infantry has low speed so you won't increase much. Field hospitals may fit more for atk inf in order to reap some juicy veterans, I remember the experience gained is based on the damage the division deals, field hos can add to that nicely. It also increase inf HP and I like the war support bonus against casualties these attacking inf may take because of lack of armor
Im quite new to being kinda good sort of at hoi (500h but we dont talk about that) and im playing a germany game rn and following and i just have to say. Wow that invasion of poland was fast.
allies capitulated march 2nd 1940
I've owned this game for years and never really played it. I play a lot of Stellaris and CK2/3 but this one seems so steep. This helps a lot. I'm trying to dive into it on my day off wednesday lol
My preferred division Templar is a three by three block of infantry with engineers either cavalry or armored recon (depending on the nation) artillery anti-tank artillery and rocket artillery in support combined with the superior firepower doctrine I have found that this template is nigh unstoppable against AI however I have yet to test it out in multiplayer
That was a very helpful video. The only thing my less competent self would add is that I love fuel drums on my tanks. Hate running out of fuel.
People be like:Bro I played 100 hours and still suck at HOI4! Me:Bro I have 1500 hours and still suck this game is insane!
thanks m8, now I can finally learn how to play hoi4!
thanks bro trying to get back into hoi4 and this helps!
Personally I highly recommend slipping SP Artillery into the tank divisions if possible. They provide insane soft attack. Even when I'm just using light tank chassis and medium howitzer I can get 6-800 depending on if I have 2 or 4 battalions in the division. I believe it's possible to even get 1000-1200 (with 4 battalions) if you do MBTs or maybe even mediums with the super heavy howitzers but I haven't tested it yet
Bro described me and i thank you for the tutorial
Thanks I needed this
Steiners gonna be reconquering all of Europe with this one 🗣️🗣️🇩🇪🇩🇪🔥🔥
My go to infantry division at is a 30 width consisting of 12 infantry battalions and 2 artillery battalions, with arty, mp, engineer, maintenance and Armored car recon support companies
Strip the maintenance, the MP, and change the armoured car to trucks and I'm with you, tho AA is almost always worth it - the rest seems entirely surplus to requirements imo
@@guyincognito3199 I feel you, but let me explain my reason for the Maintenance and MP's.
Maintenance allow you to not only loose less of your own equipment (especially artillery), but also to capture enemy equipment, which is very helpful if your economy isnt the strongest, and even if it is will mean you have more mills to put on stuff like tanks
MP: these are a must for infantry imo, since wether they are moving into enemy territory or have just gotten pushed themselves, they will be able to go back to fighting much quicker, since the MP's help them recover their Org faster.
And on a sidenote, armored cars have the highest recon value and are pretty cheap to make, on top of giving your divisions a little bit of armor which makes them harder to break for regular infantry
@@jokingjoker4964 interesting, I'm gonna have to look into the MP thing. I only ever really use maintenance in OWB, but I do think I've used them as some small countries in the distant past. Still think you'd be better off with arty, rockets, flame tanks, trucks/rangers, and AA for attacking and with only engineers and arty for defending, but I respect the thinking here for sure!
surprised to see you are still on 9/1, I thought in this patch everyone switched to 6/1 or just pure inf
From what I've seen, as long as you have Soft-Attack, every division is viable and good. I've seen 5 inf work for Soviets because of how Mass Assault Doctrine works.
One Template I want to play around with more is either 8 mech and 4 SP Artillery, or 9 mech and 4 SP artillery as a budget tank division.
Thanks for the guide, this is very helpfule!!
500 navy exp, 500 airforce exp, 370 land troops exp spent on templates on January the 1st 1936, "this is single player only" :D
I obviously used console commands to get the template designs. I'm not sting a full campaign just to show templates 😅
@@Bitt3rSteel Totally, I don't blame you, just found it amusing.
By the way, your templates are crushing the Soviets right now, so thanks a lot :)
Pretty good, only thing missing is something like a desert division. From what I’ve seen smaller tends to be better
I was waiting for division template tutorial from u for a long time, i always got totally destroyed by stupid italian ai which cant even defend its own coastline
If you do the proper lineage doctrine it lets you build horse divisions at no xp cost. Its 35 for the initial purchase but you can from then on design any cav division for no extra xp. Similar thing for special forces as about midway down the tree you get picks that reduce special forces design cost down to 2xp per so i lile to wait until im there before designing divisions.
I believe theres other reductions for artillery and tanks so can really save yourself a boatload of xp especially considering if you have to do multiple lines in the designer since the initial cost is 25.
Counterpoint. It's actually 70 XP, because you pay 35 to switch to the spirit and then another 35 to switch back to one focused on combat modifiers
@@Bitt3rSteel This is true, i just find myself in such desperate need of xp early game especially with nations who will be at war early and some really benefit from it like china.
@@Bitt3rSteel Counter counterpoint: You're spending the 35xp to get the better spirit regardless. Since it doesn't cost anymore XP to switch from one spirit to another, it actually only costs 35xp to get the free horsey spirit, make all your horse templates, and then switch out to the one you want. It costs a total of 70xp in the end yes, but since 35 was going to be spent anyway on the combat spirit, it doesn't really count as "extra", thus you do actually save a lot of XP if you're trying to go for a full MP division.
@@Garmbrael you are also missing the opportunity cost of not taking professional officer corps as early as possible
And then, there is me who had no idea why i got myself in stagnate battle on western front
1:04 Rules of the guerrilla. "Rule 9: Always use the right Tool for the Job." ~Juan Cortez
About the Divison Combinations and builds: It is "pretty simple" when you know what to take into account. Do not feel bad to pause and think it through - especially in Singleplayer.
A) Front Width: Every Front (the line from one Segment on the Map to the other) has a width that determines "how many People can stand beneath each other and fight the same Time".
This is more important when deciding how many Units fight aka to defend/attack with but also you should consider this creating the Division - but your Divisions can be bigger than the Frontline and thus be inefficient. It i s better to have them "split up" then.
B) Consider the Supply demand - it is nice to Have Tanks in your IInfantry, but that also makes them "bad" for Hills and Mountains as well as Citys and Woods while the same Time drain your Fuel Reserves fast. Also, the Speed Bonus of a Light Tanks Brigade can not work without also have the entire Infantry beeing mobile infantry as well - so even more Fuel costs.
For Countries with few acess to Recources or Countries with especially big Manpower this is of significant impact as you want them have very "low cost" while Coutries with low Pop or that need to conserve Manpower it may be more sensible to create more expensive Troops.
Every demand of Supply needs to reach the Frontlines, and a Low Supply Army can fight on a wide Front with insane Masses and that Way easy outfight the smaller Army.
To put out an example: Japan in China lives by this as all Supply must go through the shitty Portsd of Korea and than through the north even worse Indfrastructure - so Air Supply is mandatory to even have some Supplys. But,m having Horses instead of Engines for your Artillery makes the Army slow, but that does not matter as the Infantry is not much faster as well.
But that Way - and by choosing "lower Supply" in your Officers you can have an Army trice up to four times bigger than your Opponents and thus always fill up every Frontline to the Max while packing a serious Firepower.
C) Always have "Designated Units" - Have Units have Anti-Tank and some Artillery. Have "Defenders" and "Offense Troops". Have some Tanks as "Spearheads" for the terrain and occasional needs. this way you can decide what "Effect" you want on which Front.
D) Do not underestimate the effects of Air Support - have some Fighters that secure Air superiority and some Bombers that decimate enemy Units Morale, giving you an advantage when needed. This also goes for Coastal Bombardements by Naval Units when attacking or even defending.
This all strongly affects how your Troops work - and thus primarily choose the Researches and compositions that fit into that what you need and do is mandatory - you need another Composiotion for your "African Korps" as for the "Chinese Liberation Army" or the "Ethopian Peace Force".
You can use the Proper Heritage for 35 AP to make your free cavalry units. I also make a defensive 10 CW civil guard an 20 CW cavalry division and the full garrison unit + MP, some smaller nations I also make heavy cavalry units of 30 CW with 1a2 motorized, there very strong and fast. This ofc is all for single player
Came here and immediately got the answer I needed (that there is no single meta division design). Thank you for that. I think I just need to find a way to play the vanilla version. It was a far better game imo back when it was simply build 20 width division, smash into enemy, win. I know that type of gameplay is not for everyone - I play games to relax after work, not for a mind breaking calculus problem.
0:00 "That's- why I'm here." -Obiwan Kenobi
Thank god ive been playing with random divisions for the better part of 2 years!!
Haha we all know we’re going to stick with our 9 infantry and support artillery divisions
I havent played this game since before trains. Do you have some content on how to refamiliarize myself with the game vefore i drop in?
I find 18-battallion infantry divisions to actually be really good as a budget division. They have incredible defending abilities making them useful for holding against a stronger enemy, and even have some good soft attack if you stack the right buffs. The thing is in my opinion, you make budget divisions by using budget composition, not budget size. The only reason you want to use low width divisions is if you can't even cover your entire frontline, in which case I would even use bare 5-infantry divisions to cover the line and still have my main force be 36-wide. Assuming you can cover the entire line, less 36-wode divisions is just better than more 18-width divisions in every way. To turn them into attacking divisions, just switch two infantry divisions into tank battallions for breakthrough. I presonally don't use artillery besides the support battalion.