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
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.
@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
@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.
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)
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
"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.
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
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.
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.
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!
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
Trucks for encircling and light tank recon with stacked armor should just allow you to punch through. Basically combine BitterSteel's and Feedback gaming's Japan tactics.
@@Hyde_Hill thanks just one more question is that the holding division with 9 infantry and 1 artilary when i am planning an attack shouls i use them for offence or just keep them still as holders?
@@pduttagupta What the other guy replied and what bittersteel said in the video about Inf+ hehe. However if you ad armored recon to them they can just churn through the Chinese as shown by feedback gaming. As they, the Chinese, lack any pen. Just spec them for armor, reliability and soft attack and ignore the other stats as they only need to keep up with the infantry. The Chinese then can not penetrate your divisions so they do half damage. Then some truck divisions ala bittersteel for encircling and focusing on capturing logistic hubs and collab government and you can just overrun the Chinese. Then you can focus on the British and Dutch (leave the yanks alone for a bit). Once dealt with those can go either Sovjet or US your choice.
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 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
12,1 infantry are by far the best early infantry template with engineers,cav recon and support artillery is just good overall with 12,2s being a better mid game infantry that can both attack and defend
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.
Wet ammunition and slopped armor on medium tank for me is a must, i always do that, and then i try to have a good balance between speed, armor and reliability, i'm fine with 10km/h max because mech i think is 10km/h too
I like adding a single Tank Battalion to Motorized infantry. At the cost of having fewer Tank Divisions with the same industry, Motorized Divisions are noticeably stronger.
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.
3.5k hours, and I still have precisely 0 clue how to not suck at divisions, or not running out of supply. My favorite challenge to attempt is to defeat the US as Mexico after taking everything I can core in Central America and Caribbean. This may be the video that changes my career.
bittersteel I wanna let you know that in terms of holding power, and especially on integrated support of superior firepower (which i also love) cavalry recon provides far more combat power in each combat width per IC than artillery, and i think adds a comparable amount per IC even if you dont count combat width. Look at the numbers and make your own judgement but i prefer recon to line arty
You can make miracles with rangers. Just opened last late-game save. 9:20 template upon upgrade and doctrines (superior firepower + rangers) gives us ~483 soft attack / 131 breakthrough and 535 defense - just to establish a benchmark. If we switch a single line artillery for rocket arty, we end up with 557/137/532. Filling the last support batallion with rocket arty kicks this to 618/144/540.
tank need to be used based on speed, if you want units to enter gap and over run, camions and light tank have a 10-12 km/h speed ( cant remember now), and light tank also provide cheap armor, which mean add just one is perfect for this type of unit that you do at the beginning of game and never touch later on.
If your early tanks are moving 4-6km/hr, dont bother with motorized; use infantry or cav for org instead. Motorized have almost no hardness but cost double what inf and cav do while consuming fuel. If you're looking to save army xp by using the tactic for free mobile unit design, cav will do better until your tanks get faster or mechanized show up. And remember to turn the mobility army trait on to save yourself a bunch of army xp when you're creating your big boy garrison divisions.
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".
Great video, thanks. How often should you change vehicle templates with regards to tech discoveries? Should it be every time you can, or do you have milestones to do package upgrades, like in real life?
Notes for me: Defensive Army 18 width add artillery later w/ support aa, arty, engineers Attacking Infantry 25 Width 3 arty, now rangers mountaineers 25 width 3 arty Panzer 30 Width but prob gonna use Med Flame Tanks instead of arty cuz better stats in terrain, make sure speed is same as other tank Tank Design: Close Support Gun or Improved Medium Cannon Heavy Machine Guns Reliability 80%
I've been using the light tanks that Germany starts with, the Pz II, and just upgrade them changing to Henschel. By the time WWII kicks off they are nearly maximized and are more than enough all the way through Barbarossa. It's honestly unnecessary to research tanks at all. Same goes for the Russian BT-7. Until the US and Russia are gone, I don't research tanks. I'll have 12 divs panzers and 12 divs motorized in a single Panzer Army under Guderian, fully upgraded with all the tanks necessary, by Sept '39. That's really the biggest benefit of them.
9-2 infantry/artillery + support companies is dope (at this size logistics is useful - artillery eats lots of supplies). I’d never do more than 6 infantry without adding line artillery - just too weak - and never not include support artillery (for a defensive division that won’t take attrition 12 artillery units is dirt cheap for the massive boost it provides to small divisions). Your divisions need to be able to do damage not just be a wall. If you got at least 3 mils, 1 should be on artillery
I feel either XP gain was reduced or AI is less prone to attacking resulting in less XP overall as I was recently playing Hapsburg Poland and I constantly was short on XP to build templates especially as ART now costs 25XP to add first unit.
lets transfer hospital mechanic to infrastracture and replace them in divisions with medics. and if there is hospital near the front medics will work more efficiently. hospitals should work like supply hubs.
0:40 7/2 + Support AA/ Arty + Rangers As more manpower and equipment becomes available to you you will build more of this division and have more army groups. That's it.
I don't know if you've said this before, but how does supply factor in? If you're a more powerful nation invading Africa, South America, or Asia, do you stick to Motorized and Tanks, or do you use Infantry or Cavalry instead, and if so, what Combat Width?
i wish there was a comprehensive guide explaining why and what everything does, because 90% of this makes no sense to me, god division templates are so confusing
Yeah logistics company is used to reduce fuel/supply consumption, so it’s best on panzer&motorized divisions that consume a lot of supply while pushing into low supply tiles
People sleeping on amtracs for marines. Mechanised can be improved to go 12km/h. Micro divisions of trucks are far better for swarming the russian interior. Also, all these divisions are very very keyed towards majors. Other than specialised divisions, the best two divisions are Infantry + engi/arty companies to hold the line and make small pushes; Medium or light tanks with trucks or infantry with arty and recon companies to break the lines.
Recon companies can be more advantageous on defence than people usually think. If you have spare support equipment theres no harm in adding it to frontline defence units.
Got 3k hours in game and i whould say most of this is right but i like to use armored car as recon on motorized and armor divisions to get more speed and a bit of armor on motorized also mechinegun insted of heavy machinegun on the tank desigin to make em cheaper also paratroopers are OP against IA since they dont defend usually againt it and you let them attack then you send the paratroopers in and deny them air cover and supply and crush them whit a armored / motorized blitz /spearhead followed by infantry . Works like a "cheat" almost against france, italy and england as germany
There is something I want to ask. I always made an army for one general either full infantry (24 divisions for one general) or infantry with motorized/tanks divisions (18 divisons of infantry and 6 divisions with tanks/motorized divisions for one general). Is this the right way to go or should I do somthing diffrently? Btw I do motorized template with rocket missiles on trucks the animation is realy nice and the soft attack is also very promising.
When I'm assigning divisions to a general I'm always conscious of the traits the generals will give initially AND end up getting. Where a gwneral's troops fight and what the divisions use while doing so affects the experience towards certain traits they will get, as you likely know. For that reason I almost never have tanks and inf under the same general, but may do so if they're fighting in a particular region (desert/snow/mountains/hills/jungle) to farm terrain bonuses and the Adaptability perk which is amazing. But careful perk farming is only important if you're very comfortable in a war (aka Ethiopia draining Italy of manpower in the mountains) or a major fighting on multiplr fronts with twenty generals - more often you just want the most experienced general you can find giving your troops the best leadership and traits you can provide, future be damned!
“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
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 🤣🤣
"You suck at HOI4."
Why you gotta call me out like that?
Having the content creator imposter syndrome I see
Oh Pravus
Hi Pravus
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
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.
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
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"
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"
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
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!
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!
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 👏👏👏🫡
👍
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.
The intro alone hits really hard. But it's completely true so I appreciate the blunt approach to your tutorial.
i played for 1k hours and still didn't know how to make decent templates, thanks bro
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
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
This is exactly what I needed as a returning player. A naval version of this video would be great
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.
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
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.
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.
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 :(
5:20 bitter hitting us w/ the "e-shports alta" has made my day
Thank you for making this, I've been swiping the divisions you've made for a while so this is great.
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.
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.
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.
Love the Futurama clips!
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
"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 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
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!
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.
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
Super interesting, gonna start a new round with all the things i just learned from your video!
You did a good job explaining
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!
Thank you so much,been struggling with this stuff!
Happy to help!
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
Perfect video!
Next, pls make division templates, which first priority is the terrain.
0:00 sobs “ I know “😔
I suck so much when playing as japan i couldnt even push to beijing till 1943😢
Trucks for encircling and light tank recon with stacked armor should just allow you to punch through. Basically combine BitterSteel's and Feedback gaming's Japan tactics.
@@Hyde_Hill thanks just one more question is that the holding division with 9 infantry and 1 artilary when i am planning an attack shouls i use them for offence or just keep them still as holders?
@@pduttaguptathey are best used to reinforce attacks by your offensive units or pin enemy divisions
@@pduttagupta What the other guy replied and what bittersteel said in the video about Inf+ hehe. However if you ad armored recon to them they can just churn through the Chinese as shown by feedback gaming. As they, the Chinese, lack any pen. Just spec them for armor, reliability and soft attack and ignore the other stats as they only need to keep up with the infantry. The Chinese then can not penetrate your divisions so they do half damage. Then some truck divisions ala bittersteel for encircling and focusing on capturing logistic hubs and collab government and you can just overrun the Chinese. Then you can focus on the British and Dutch (leave the yanks alone for a bit). Once dealt with those can go either Sovjet or US your choice.
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 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
This video is going to be super helpful next time I play.
Bro described me and i thank you for the tutorial
12,1 infantry are by far the best early infantry template with engineers,cav recon and support artillery is just good overall with 12,2s being a better mid game infantry that can both attack and defend
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.
Only game where I have more hours watching tutorials rather than playing :D
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 :)
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?
Wet ammunition and slopped armor on medium tank for me is a must, i always do that, and then i try to have a good balance between speed, armor and reliability, i'm fine with 10km/h max because mech i think is 10km/h too
Only reason i use light tanks is to put them in my offensive infantry for the armor bonus
I like adding a single Tank Battalion to Motorized infantry. At the cost of having fewer Tank Divisions with the same industry, Motorized Divisions are noticeably stronger.
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
Internet: Show hand. Bitt3rSteel:
And then, there is me who had no idea why i got myself in stagnate battle on western front
I really needed this, god damn thank you!
3.5k hours, and I still have precisely 0 clue how to not suck at divisions, or not running out of supply. My favorite challenge to attempt is to defeat the US as Mexico after taking everything I can core in Central America and Caribbean.
This may be the video that changes my career.
bittersteel I wanna let you know that in terms of holding power, and especially on integrated support of superior firepower (which i also love) cavalry recon provides far more combat power in each combat width per IC than artillery, and i think adds a comparable amount per IC even if you dont count combat width. Look at the numbers and make your own judgement but i prefer recon to line arty
You can make miracles with rangers. Just opened last late-game save. 9:20 template upon upgrade and doctrines (superior firepower + rangers) gives us ~483 soft attack / 131 breakthrough and 535 defense - just to establish a benchmark. If we switch a single line artillery for rocket arty, we end up with 557/137/532. Filling the last support batallion with rocket arty kicks this to 618/144/540.
tank need to be used based on speed, if you want units to enter gap and over run, camions and light tank have a 10-12 km/h speed ( cant remember now), and light tank also provide cheap armor, which mean add just one is perfect for this type of unit that you do at the beginning of game and never touch later on.
If your early tanks are moving 4-6km/hr, dont bother with motorized; use infantry or cav for org instead. Motorized have almost no hardness but cost double what inf and cav do while consuming fuel. If you're looking to save army xp by using the tactic for free mobile unit design, cav will do better until your tanks get faster or mechanized show up.
And remember to turn the mobility army trait on to save yourself a bunch of army xp when you're creating your big boy garrison divisions.
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".
I've played over 500 hours worth of HOI4 and I didn't know the majority of things in this video 😅
Great video, thanks. How often should you change vehicle templates with regards to tech discoveries? Should it be every time you can, or do you have milestones to do package upgrades, like in real life?
I needed this video so much, thank you Bitt3r, this is so helpful!
surprised to see you are still on 9/1, I thought in this patch everyone switched to 6/1 or just pure inf
Aren't you in the Hoi4 world tournament
Notes for me:
Defensive Army 18 width add artillery later w/ support aa, arty, engineers
Attacking Infantry 25 Width 3 arty, now rangers
mountaineers 25 width 3 arty
Panzer 30 Width but prob gonna use Med Flame Tanks instead of arty cuz better stats in terrain, make sure speed is same as other tank
Tank Design:
Close Support Gun or Improved Medium Cannon
Heavy Machine Guns
Reliability 80%
Will need to save this for later. I am curious what your thoughts are on fuel drums and 15width as a base size.
I've never felt so attacked by something i completely agree with.
I've been using the light tanks that Germany starts with, the Pz II, and just upgrade them changing to Henschel. By the time WWII kicks off they are nearly maximized and are more than enough all the way through Barbarossa. It's honestly unnecessary to research tanks at all. Same goes for the Russian BT-7. Until the US and Russia are gone, I don't research tanks. I'll have 12 divs panzers and 12 divs motorized in a single Panzer Army under Guderian, fully upgraded with all the tanks necessary, by Sept '39. That's really the biggest benefit of them.
9-2 infantry/artillery + support companies is dope (at this size logistics is useful - artillery eats lots of supplies). I’d never do more than 6 infantry without adding line artillery - just too weak - and never not include support artillery (for a defensive division that won’t take attrition 12 artillery units is dirt cheap for the massive boost it provides to small divisions). Your divisions need to be able to do damage not just be a wall. If you got at least 3 mils, 1 should be on artillery
PLEASE DO THIS FOR PLANES AND NAVIES
I feel either XP gain was reduced or AI is less prone to attacking resulting in less XP overall as I was recently playing Hapsburg Poland and I constantly was short on XP to build templates especially as ART now costs 25XP to add first unit.
lets transfer hospital mechanic to infrastracture and replace them in divisions with medics. and if there is hospital near the front medics will work more efficiently. hospitals should work like supply hubs.
also lets create medic/hospital tree in the tech tree.
0:40 7/2 + Support AA/ Arty + Rangers
As more manpower and equipment becomes available to you you will build more of this division and have more army groups. That's it.
7/2hasnt been optimal for years.
Pls explain naval stuff
Dankus is the BEST
I don't know if you've said this before, but how does supply factor in? If you're a more powerful nation invading Africa, South America, or Asia, do you stick to Motorized and Tanks, or do you use Infantry or Cavalry instead, and if so, what Combat Width?
Thanks I needed this
thanks bro trying to get back into hoi4 and this helps!
Will you do the best designs on planes and the navy?
Hello! I think you can add armored recon grup for your offensive infantry division. It gives some armour and it cost just 12 tanks
11:57 what is the name of the background music ?
i wish there was a comprehensive guide explaining why and what everything does, because 90% of this makes no sense to me, god division templates are so confusing
Hey Bittersteel, why didn't you mention space marines?
I don't use them. These are the divisions I use to win my campaigns
@@Bitt3rSteelKan je trouwens Nederlands praten?
@@silvervodka4884 uiteraard
Dat is zo vet!
@@Bitt3rSteelzou je in je volgende video iets in het Nederlands kunnen zeggen?
is using logistics on every single division bad?
Yeah logistics company is used to reduce fuel/supply consumption, so it’s best on panzer&motorized divisions that consume a lot of supply while pushing into low supply tiles
Thanks for the great content! Could you do an explanation video on the support companies?
Thank god ive been playing with random divisions for the better part of 2 years!!
People sleeping on amtracs for marines.
Mechanised can be improved to go 12km/h.
Micro divisions of trucks are far better for swarming the russian interior.
Also, all these divisions are very very keyed towards majors.
Other than specialised divisions, the best two divisions are Infantry + engi/arty companies to hold the line and make small pushes;
Medium or light tanks with trucks or infantry with arty and recon companies to break the lines.
Recon companies can be more advantageous on defence than people usually think. If you have spare support equipment theres no harm in adding it to frontline defence units.
0:04 used to eh. we all suck no matter how many hours.
Steiners gonna be reconquering all of Europe with this one 🗣️🗣️🇩🇪🇩🇪🔥🔥
Got 3k hours in game and i whould say most of this is right but i like to use armored car as recon on motorized and armor divisions to get more speed and a bit of armor on motorized also mechinegun insted of heavy machinegun on the tank desigin to make em cheaper also paratroopers are OP against IA since they dont defend usually againt it and you let them attack then you send the paratroopers in and deny them air cover and supply and crush them whit a armored / motorized blitz /spearhead followed by infantry . Works like a "cheat" almost against france, italy and england as germany
There is something I want to ask. I always made an army for one general either full infantry (24 divisions for one general) or infantry with motorized/tanks divisions (18 divisons of infantry and 6 divisions with tanks/motorized divisions for one general). Is this the right way to go or should I do somthing diffrently? Btw I do motorized template with rocket missiles on trucks the animation is realy nice and the soft attack is also very promising.
When I'm assigning divisions to a general I'm always conscious of the traits the generals will give initially AND end up getting. Where a gwneral's troops fight and what the divisions use while doing so affects the experience towards certain traits they will get, as you likely know. For that reason I almost never have tanks and inf under the same general, but may do so if they're fighting in a particular region (desert/snow/mountains/hills/jungle) to farm terrain bonuses and the Adaptability perk which is amazing. But careful perk farming is only important if you're very comfortable in a war (aka Ethiopia draining Italy of manpower in the mountains) or a major fighting on multiplr fronts with twenty generals - more often you just want the most experienced general you can find giving your troops the best leadership and traits you can provide, future be damned!